Not an issue with Windows 7 as such
Hi, This is a bit unusual and not strictly a Windows 7 issue, imo it's more an issue that Microsoft and it's customers should be made aware of although I'm not sure how to go about that. This afternoon I received a phone call purporting to be from a security firm allied to Microsoft. The guy was African and it sounded like he was in a busy call centre. He said the name of his company was something like Tagon Security. That's what it sounded like anyway as his accent was pretty thick. Anyway, he started off by saying they were a security company tasked by, and allied to, Microsoft to deal with malware/viruses etc on their (MS) customers PC's. I immediately thought, BS, but let him continue as I wanted to know what this was all about. He said people's computers sent out data to their company whenever they were infected but he didn't explain how the PC would know it was infected! He then said to prove this, hit the windows button and 'R' and open the Run window then type in 'Prefetch.' He asked how many folders were in there and I just made up a number; 20 (I wasn't following his instructions, I was spinning him out to see where this was going). He said that sounds bad, 20 infected files in that folder. I knew this was BS and let him continue. He repeated they were a Microsoft affiliated company tasked with removing malware and said he was moving me up to a level two agent who would help remove the 'malware'. So this other guy comes on and instructs me to go to My Computer, right click on it and select Event Viewer, then Applications and to give him a rough estimate of the error messages. I told him about 30 and he's "oh that sounds really bad sir" lol. It was at this point I hung up on him but he phoned back a couple of times but I was out taking my son back to school and I've not heard back from him. I've looked online for this 'company' but can't find anything so I believe it's a scam. They withheld their phone number so I don't have that. IMO this is an issue Microsoft should be aware of if people, Microsoft customers, are receiving cold calls from people who purport to be from a company allied to Microsoft in an attempt, I believe, to gain access to that users PC. I believe their next step would have been to ask for remote access rights to remove this BS malware they said was on the machine and if granted they could have gotten their hands on any sort of private information. I feel people should be made aware of this approach, a completely new one to me and I like to think I'm security aware on my PC, but I'm not sure how to proceed with this. If I call the authorities will the information get out there to people who should be made aware of this? I'm not sure how to proceed with this so any advice would be welcome. Thanks.
November 9th, 2009 6:49pm

Got to be honest with you, you gave the guy far more courtesy than he would have got off me! If I receive any call at home from a company that I don't know or that I did not ask for I usually start by saying "Hello" and end with "Not interested". If they persist I hang up.If at work I may say "Is this a sales call? We have suppliers for everything we need"or perhaps "Sorry we do not do surveys, company policy".I have my home phone number listed in the telephone preference so I should not get sales-related calls but some still slip through. I know some people who usenumber-display on their phones and never answer a withheld one.However, it is worrying that they would use a tiny bit of knowledge to try to socially engineer info from the less PC-aware users such as the growing army of "silver-surfers" out there.Gits!
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November 9th, 2009 7:10pm

I too received a similar call. My cue was the bad connection and the accent of the caller. They said they were from Microsoft and that my computer was exhibiting infection and that they would want to identify the virus because my machine was infecting other systems. However, I was suspicious and said so. After some back and forth, the agent hung up. So I concluded that it was a bogus call. After a week or so another agent called with the same story. Just wanted some confermation... I see that your post is in 2009. Are other people reporting similar contacts? Thanks so much
October 29th, 2011 12:02pm

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