Be warned, there's some nasties out there !

Following on the posting above I ran a full scan which found (and treated) a Heur virus

 

Following on from the 'unexpected' email theme, there is a scam current in Oz at the moment that involves missed phone calls.

An incoming phone call stops after a few rings and then human curiosity comes into play. The recipient rings number back and is kept on the line on some pretense or other. Finds later that they have been conned into ringing a 'premium number', that your telco happily charges you an arm and a leg for, remitting most of it to the scammers. Needless to say most of the numbers are located in or near West Africa.

 

Just had an email from a guy in India, seems he has a video of me masturbating and wants 250 Euros or he will send it to all my friends. Would be a real bargain, if I had any friends
Took me bloody ages to clean the laptop camera

 

Sorry Geoff I sent the email to you by mistake ,it should have gone to another forum member

 

The old scams are still very much alive. We had calls nearly every day suggesting, but not actually saying, that they were from BT. A quick check showed that they were coming from a series of 10,000 numbers used by Virgin.

Today we had a call saying that our BT internet would be cancelled in three days time unless ( we did not listen long enough to fine out). The number was one for Saxmundham near Ipswich. Googling that showed that there had been 447 similar enquiries in the last few days and it was a scam.

I suppose enough people respond to make in worthwhile.

Mike

 

More than the 10 quid an hour they could get on the tills in Tesco I'd wager.

 

One of my pet hates is that people are allowed to register internet domains and then hide their details behind some anonymizing company, so you can't find any details about who is behind illuminationline.org, not even the country. Enough errors in the text to suggest a western African had input.

 

Googling SFU.AC.AT tells us that this is the Siegmund Freud University, Vienna. You really have been chosen to join the Illuminati. Of course we never doubted it.

Mike

 

That is another issue; the spoofing of email addresses is far too easy.

 

Nasties ? They never end !!!!!!

Just had a phone call to tell me my BT service is about to be cut off and inviting me to hit a few numbers to discuss the problem.

I just hung up and GOOGLED BT for their latest advice on the subject:

Security warning - Fraud activities or scams
Scams where fraudsters are claiming to be from BT
We're aware that some customers are being contacted by individuals fraudulently claiming to be from BT or acting on behalf of BT. This type of fraud is an industry-wide problem that we're actively working to tackle. For the latest developments please check www.bt.com/scams >

Please be very careful as criminals have been trying to trick customers into giving out their bank details.

• They might try to convince you that you owe money on your bill and threaten to disconnect your phone line immediately if you don't pay them over the phone. BT will never disconnect a phone line during the call
• They might say that you have a fault or virus on your computer and then try to scare you by suggesting that your computer will stop working if you don't take action. They then try to persuade or coerce you into installing software, or ask you to perform commands on your computer with the intention of gaining remote access to your device

These fraudsters 'spoof' the number they're calling from so if you dial 1471 you might see a fictitious number that masks the real destination. They may also offer you a call-back number to confirm the legitimacy of their call and will then answer as if you're calling BT.

Please remember that you can always check your account online to see if there are any problems. Just go to "xxxxxxxxxxx"

Ron

 

Ron, You do seem to get a lot of nasties. I used to be plagued with nuisance phone calls. Silent ones, the ones from India pretending to be from Windows etc etc. Then I signed up to BTs call protect scheme. I can now have weeks that go by without unwanted or nuisance calls . My BT account tells me that over 400 calls went into their black hole since I signed up. Best thing I ever did!

 

Is anyone else getting any bloody emails from the dark net saying they have hacked your computer and have been recording you doing things you shouldn't be according to them, then wanting you to pay them bit coins so they won't send the video's to your friends and family. It's doing my frigging head in as I can't block them cos it comes from my email address or so it seems I'm getting really pissed off it's getting that bad I don't want to open my inbox even though they go straight into my spam. Any advice would be great cos it's driving me nuts.

Mike.

 

Mike change your password

have you checked your sent email
if it shows emails sent to yourself by yourself then you have been hacked
if not is a scam just delete
also change your password
regards
Clive

 

Have done all that Clive and have checked my sent box but there's nothing been sent from my email.
I'm absolutely sick of them I've reported them to Microsoft and what a waste of time that was.

Cheers Mike

 

so you havent been hacked its just spam just delete mate

 

yep it's spam Clive I was just hoping I could stop getting them.

 

I had a couple like that - just deleted them and had no more since

TD

 

Did they seem as they were coming from your email address TD ?