A group of scammers are targetting Australians by posing as call centres assistants working for software giant Microsoft.
The scams, which are mainly operating out of Asia, apparently work around current laws by convincing people to hand over their money.
“I’ve actually had three inquiries on it just this week,” Microsoft Australia’s chief security advisor Stuart Strathdee told The Age. “They’ve [previously] targetted both our big telcos here in Australia and a bunch of other Australian household name companies.”
The scammers apparently work by convincing users to let them access their computers remotely. Once they pretend to investigate a problem, they demand payment of hundreds of dollars before they “fix” any viruses.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
