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Pastimes : Computer Learning

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To: Garlic Breath who wrote (103637)	7/15/2019 2:00:43 AM
From: Zen Dollar Round	5 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 110603

I am the de facto tech support guy for my family and thought I had everyone trained well not to fall for phishing or phone scams, but apparently I didn't do a good enough job. Recently my mother answered a phone call that caller ID said was from "Apple" so she picked up. A recording of a woman's voice (with an American accent) said that her iCloud account had been compromised and to press a button to speak to a live technician. She did and was connected to a man speaking in an Indian accent (that should have been her first clue). He asked her to go to a particular website (for GoToMeeting client software) and download the program that would allow him to fix her account. She did so and let him connect. He opened up the Mac's text editor, TextEdit, and just typed in the password he wanted her to change her iCloud account to. She knew enough not to do that, and about that time my stepfather walked in and started asking the scammer questions. He quickly hung up. That's when my folks called me. I connected to her computer from remote (using TeamViewer) and thoroughly went over her system. Looks like he didn't install any malware, and I think she would have had to give permission to accept any files from him, which she said she did not. Nor did he ask her to visit any other site besides GoToMeeting. I deleted all apps and files used by GoToMeeting and ran malware scans. The scammers kept calling back about every 20 minutes, each time from a different number with variations forms of "Apple" or "Apple Support" in the caller ID. They finally quit after several hours. I'm now making more of an effort to inform family members whose computers I help manage about the dangers of phone scammers and how sophisticated they've become. If scammers ever solve the problem of having most of their workers speak with obvious accents, it'll be open season on all Americans.

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