Part of working on
my top-secret site project I have mentioned
a time or two before involves compiling a database of sites. It was while checking the viability of some
sites I had links to yesterday afternoon, when up popped a notice that Mediacom
Cable had detected some suspicious activity, with further instructions to call
a toll-free phone number to receive help.
Since I am now
somewhat seasoned to the “fun” that can be had while surfing the net, I did not
panic, but I did become a little concerned when I found that I could not simply
close the pop-up and leave the site. My
level of concern rose when I found that I could not even close my browser.
The next step would
be to restart my computer, but before doing this, I read some more of the
information provided on the pop-up. It
said to not restart the computer or risk doing great harm.
So, I called the
toll-free phone number, and on the other end of the line was a man with a
distinct Indian (dot—not feather) accent.
He identified himself as being a Windows 35 technician, who was there to
help me with my problem. I told him what
the problem was, and he asked me to give him remote access to my computer,
which I did.
He saw the pop-up
message, and then started checking all sorts of things that I could see him
doing on my screen. Since my eyesight is
still not all that good, I missed a lot, but he paused for me to see that my
computer had been infected with the [Koobface] worm, which made my computer
wide open for all sorts of no-goods to use in a network and steal my stuff.
Amazingly, I am
still not in a panic. Considering all of
the “stuff” that has been hitting my proverbial fan lately, an infected
computer would be just some more, I suppose.
The technician went
on to show me a system errors log that had over 1,000 entries, and he said that
there was a solution. It involved taking
my CPU to a repair center in St. Louis, and for a fee of $500, the worm would
be removed and whatever was causing the system errors would be fixed. I told the technician that we could not take
our computer anywhere (let alone over 200 miles away) because of our very poor
health, and then he told me that all could be fixed remotely for $259, and if I
wanted a three-year warranty, it would be $459.
Okay, I was
starting to get a little down by then, and I acknowledged that I recognized the
fact that it was his job to sell me the service. Nonetheless, I asked him if he could at least
tell me if I could do a complete system wipe and Windows 10 reinstall. He told me that this would not fix anything
because Koobface was due to internet hacking and there was nothing wrong on my
computer to remove. He went to say that
as soon as I fired up the computer again after the system reinstall, all of my
problems would still be there.
Even though I was
not about to okay anything until Arlynda told me I could, I let him transfer me
to another company, who could remotely fix my problems. Much to my confusion, the man answering the
phone sounded exactly like the guy I had been talking to before. Furthermore, the background noise on their
end was exactly the same. I secured a
phone number to call him back, and hung up the phone.
Well, I have been
kidding about practicing having "senior moments," and after this experience, I
need to take them more seriously. For it
was not until later thinking about the conversation I had with the first
technician that I realized he had already let the cat out of the bag (so to
speak). For if there was no infection on
my computer, what were they going to fix?
Studying-up on the
Koobface worm revealed that any good antivirus program protects against
it. I also found where there is a
Koobface scam involving pop-up messages directing the unsuspecting to Indian
call-centers trying to sell unneeded repairs. I also found some more interesting information
on the [Windows 35] tech centers.
Yeah, go ahead and
laugh at my gullibility, but I really can now say that I have experienced it
all on the net. That is, at least until
the next source of “fun” comes along, of course.
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