Telephone Fraud Warning

Cornwall Council Information Services has received reports of a telephone fraud being attempted within the county.

The fraudsters are cold calling people claiming to be Windows XP service providers and then advising that they have detected that the person’s computer has problems (slow running, Trojan viruses etc.) This statement is false. They won’t have had access to the computer to identify any problem.

This claim is made with the intent to scare people into paying money to have their PC’s remotely ‘fixed’. They have also been known to infect computers with viruses once attached to prove their ‘repair’ has worked. They call from UK based numbers but all calls to these numbers appear to end up in India. All reports we have had so far involve people with Indian accents.

They appear to go under a number of names Supportonclick, logmein123 and Systemrecure.

As an additional warning. Random website adverts claiming to have found viruses on your computer are equally suspect and no attempt should be made to install any software offered by them.

This warning applies equally to your computers at home. Please ensure your computers at home have their security systems up-to-date, are fully patched and have a firewall in place.

Regards

Anthony Waters
Senior ICT Support Officer
Information Services
Cornwall Council
01872 323202
awaters@cornwall.gov.uk