The consumer complaints board Callercenter.com reports that the most frequently reported telephone scams thus far in 2011 involve the use of social engineering tactics designed to exploit victims’ fear or good nature to steal money.
The most prevalent con has been the “Microsoft PC Repair Scam.” In this scheme, the victim receives a phone call from a criminal claiming to be a security engineer from Microsoft or other well-known, legitimate companies. The scammers say they are providing free security checks and attempt to deceive their victims into permitting remote access to their computer.
The alleged technician then finds mundane errors on the PC and presents them as dangerous viruses. The victim is then guided to download a malicious program, which will demand a credit card and subsequently charge the card. This scam is extremely popular among cybercriminals and has been reported in every developed English-speaking country. Microsoft has already published several Fraud Alerts, but the fraud continues to grow in size.
The second-most prevalent scam in 2011 has been the well-known “Grandparents Scam.” In this scam, fraudsters call elderly persons and pretend to be grandchildren. They plea for money to help them out of a supposed crisis, such as being arrested in a foreign country. To make the story more plausible, another individual will make a follow up phone call and pretend to be a police officer or a lawyer who confirms the story.
“The security of software is improving all the time, but at the same time we are seeing cybercriminals increasingly turn to tactics of deception to trick people in order to steal from them,” said Richard Saunders, director of International Public and Analyst Relations at Microsoft. “Criminals have proved once again that their ability to innovate new scams is matched by their ruthless pursuit of our money.”
