So my dad was farting around on my ma's MB (where has no business, he has his own iPad) and one of those javascripts came up that said "Your computer has been hacked, call tech support..."

So instead of calling me, he calls what he said was Apple...fortunately my ma texted me and was worried about it. He was in for a $200/year "Apple care support plan" before my ma texted me, suspicious of the whole thing.

I got him to cancel it immediately, and I got hold of her MB this afternoon...the company was called Support Teq and they got him to give them remote access to her computer. They even had a Terminal window open to "show him the attacks." II was like...holy cripes!

So they had full access to it for at least 3-4 hours. Some light reading told me to back up very selectively and then nuke and pave b/c who knows what they installed or copied. Change all passwords, etc. Grrrrr. What a royal ass hassle.

My folks had their identities stolen last year, I suspect in a similar operation that I was never informed of...my dad is apparently very susceptible to this stuff. Just a warning to tell your family and friends to watch out for scammers!

I thought that everyone knew about this by now.

My brother was looking for a McAfee update and somehow in the process of looking for McAfee Support clicked on a third-party "tech support" outfit, who installed something that let them access his system. I suggested that he wipe and reinstall, but he did not, although he did run some malware apps. They may have installed something called Team Viewer. Luckily, that computer died shortly afterward, probably a dead power supply from his description. I hope none of the remotely installed stuff on the old hard drive gets transferred to the new one. I can't help him because he's using Windoze.

My brother got that same thing on his iPad and he called them but he wouldn't give them a credit card number to charge for removal of whatever flashed up on his screen. He took a screenshot and sent it to me and I told him to call his son and he would straighten it out.

---

Grateful11

SteveO,

Justhad to deal withthe same issue for a friend of the family. She didn't give any credit card info. However, I had to go through the machine and remove the software that provided remote access. It was a variation of LogMeIn. Very annoying since it installs deep into the system and you have to pull files to remove it. No installer. No uninstaller. Piecemeal.

Robert

just curious, are these people that fall victim to this scam logged in as administrator? or do they know the administrator password? how else could the software install so deep in the system without admin password?

I have MBA to my inlaws and my parents, but they don't know the admin password. Even at home, we use non admin accounts.

My dad did the same thing. A company called him. Sigh.

Then he let it happen AGAIN, since they sounded familiar and he thought he had worked with them before. Double sigh.

Quote
space-time
just curious, are these people that fall victim to this scam logged in as administrator? or do they know the administrator password? how else could the software install so deep in the system without admin password?

Social engineering

freeradical - that assumption is a big one to make. We are talking about someone (in my dad's case and I'd suspect many others who are inherently trusting people) whose computer savviness extends to knowing passwords. I've told him this stuff before, to watch out for this stuff and never give anyone your passwords, info, etc...and I never dreamed he'd do something like this...but he's one of those people who is just stubborn enough to literally know enough to be very dangerous...and think he can do stuff he has no business doing. He tried to watch me working on this machine to undo some of this stuff yesterday and I moved and told him, "No, I'm sorry, you cannot watch me do any of this."

Robert - yeah this one was also a logmein variation. I removed the app but need to hunt around for the other stuff. I had my mom change her passwords. Fortunately, most sites these days **star** out the credit card numbers even while you're logged in as a user.

The machine is totally offline now and waiting for me to doctor it...but going forward I clearly need to deny admin access to that machine to everyone but me. The problem is STUPID EFFING FLASH which demands constant updates and requires an admin password...that's why they had the admin pw. Any way around this? I suppose I could do that stuff remotely, that may be the easiest but not the simplest solution. But even that becomes an issue, because to allow remote access you need an admin password if that system pref is locked (and I now have Sharing locked down).

My mom is smart enough to know not to eff with this stuff, just to call me. I could give her a pw but my dad would find it and I can guarantee he'd wreak havoc all over again.

I love my dad dearly, but man, sometimes he does the stupidest shiat in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with a child...like, what were you thinking???

Doing all this must have taken a surprising amount of effort on the part of your dad. Maybe he needs a hobby.

If Flash is the only thing holding you back from total control, I would sacrifice it. Or—give your mom a password she can remember and not write down.

Yeesh.

Quote
MysteryGuest
Doing all this must have taken a surprising amount of effort on the part of your dad. Maybe he needs a hobby.

If Flash is the only thing holding you back from total control, I would sacrifice it. Or—give your mom a password she can remember and not write down.

Yeesh.

Yes. He definitely needs a hobby. He recently retired from his part-time job and now he does NOTHING. We've tried to talk to him about his interests, etc. to get him out of the house some more (and out of my mom's hair) but mostly it seems he's interested in watching TV and being online. All he has is time with nothing really ever going on. Sigh.

I've decided to lock down the machine so neither of them has admin access. It is worth it to avoid stuff like this. Thanks for the empathy, most of this I was just venting. Yeesh is right.

Get him in an exercise program. The gym has a lot of hot, sweaty chicks.

---

Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.