I was Hacked!

I was online watching their scan and they found what they considered "normal" hacking tools. ANYDESK was one I remember. After that scan, for about an hour, they referred to their headquarters where additional scanning took place.

I appears that the local office scan is a list of "bad stuff" that is periodically updated. But the main office scan has data as of that day. Total of 5 hours. Do I believe the viruses have all been removed - absolute logic says no. But it is just one of those risk factors. Will the light turn green while I am in the crosswalk?

Do you know how to initiate the Microsoft scan? The danger there is you delete something based upon that scan, it may be very difficult to restore in the event of a false-positive.
 
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boleyd said:
I was online watching their scan and they found what they considered "normal" hacking tools. ANYDESK was one I remember. After that scan, for about an hour, they referred to their headquarters where additional scanning took place.

I appears that the local office scan is a list of "bad stuff" that is periodically updated. But the main office scan has data as of that day. Total of 5 hours. Do I believe the viruses have all been removed - absolute logic says no. But it is just one of those risk factors. Will the light turn green while I am in the crosswalk?

Do you know how to initiate the Microsoft scan? The danger there is you delete something based upon that scan, it may be very difficult to restore in the event of a false-positive.
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You got into the AnyDesk thing where hackers attempt to manipulate a webpage of your bank account and make you think that you received a payment credit when all they did was edit the amount, and the amount was too much because YOU made a typo? The hacker's malware scan is nothing more than a command prompt and them typing in the tree command or some other fake scan. In the olden days, they demanded payment in gift cards but then moved on to cash via money mules, bitcoins, and ACH transfers.

Anyway, to run the malicious software removal tool, you need to click on the Security Center icon located on your tray near the clock, or go to settings, click on Privacy and Security and then Windows Security located at the top of the page on the right then click on Virus & threat protection.

Under Virus and threat protection:
Click on Scan options.
and at the bottom, click on Microsoft Defender Antivirus (offline scan).

This is a thorough scan that can take a long time. Because the system needs to reboot to the system-level without anything running, your computer will need to restart. Shutdown any other applications that are running when you do this.

For a bit of an insight on what these hackers do, as well as a bit of entertainment, check out the following on YouTube.



On the more serious side:

Jim did a 4-part series that was broadcast on BBC after he infiltrated their office and took over their CCTV cameras. The Indian police went after the scammers and the call center, "arrested" the scammers and then let them go the next day.

He also goes as far as to shut down their phone systems and intercept their activities.

There are many others that are doing their part to stall, stop, and eventually get their activities shut down. The hackers and scammers have bilked $ billions from mostly the elderly and others who are naïve.
 
Fortunately the check was voided so it bounced at the bank in Des Plains.
They have my phone number but no harassing calls. Just disappeared. Rational crooks?
I have disappeared from the web so no way to re-attack me.
The Geeks charged $171 for their service. I got off cheap.

The WEB is so convenient. The WEB is so corrupt.
 
If they attempted to deposit the check or cash it in the USA, you should contact the FBI. They have broken several federal laws under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The FBI should be interested.

$171 for Geek Squad is cheap. Normally, they charge $200 just to format your hard drive and reinstall windows. :)
 
This discussion did remind me to go and create a system backup and rescue disk (USB stick actually). The system backup took a long time.

These days most of these problems seem to be caused by "phishing" e-mails with links one should not click on. Currently, I'm getting a rash of such e-mails so obviously my e-mail address has been leaked by someone. Based on experience I expect this will ease over the next few weeks.

I work by the rule from XFiles - "Trust No One". :cool:
 
pcas1986 said:
The system backup took a long time.
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What long? It lasts for 2/3 mins for a full "live" (i.e. system running, not from rescue disk) 55GB OS backup from an SSD to an internal HDD with Acronis, same with AOMEI. Image is 25GB or so. "System" means OS only, not OS and data, nor installed software.
 
HPL said:
What long? It lasts for 2/3 mins for a full "live" (i.e. system running, not from rescue disk) 55GB OS backup from an SSD to an internal HDD with Acronis, same with AOMEI. Image is 25GB or so. "System" means OS only, not OS and data, nor installed software.
Click to expand...

It was a back up to a mirrored network drive which is probably not the fastest pair of HDD. It doesn't need to be. The data transfer rate wouldn't have been very high either.

My backup was 173GB of data and between the prep work, actual transfer and verification it took a while but I didn't time it. It just seemed like a long time.

Creating the rescue disk (usb drive) didn't take very long but again I didn't time it.

I've used Acronis software in the past when I needed to partition disks but disk space, or even SSD space, is so cheap these days it hardly seems worthwhile doing that.
 
Until the Federal Governments decide that Internet fraud is NOT just a niche issue the scammers have free rein and little fear of punishment. Some portion of all the Internet traffic is illegal scammers. They openly tout their databases with the latest little chunks of code that evade the vain attempts of Microsoft and anti-malware software. The risk to scammers is ridiculously low. No one cares until they are hit. It is not possible to get the attention of lawmaker during the election season. So, customers remain in a defensive position while the scammers have free rein making millions of attacks each day with absolutely no fear of arrest.
 
I can assure you that the US Government does take cypercrime very seriously. However, most of the scams on the Internet are outside their reach. Hence, my saying that if there was a transaction involving using a US bank that they would be interested. Many countries around the world are reluctant to assist American law enforcement in pursuing the scammers operating in their countries. For example, China operates a massive bot net that is constantly probing networks in America but the Harris-Biden administration wants nothing to do with bringing the issue up with Chinese leaders. Russia reached a deal with hackers operating in their country that they could do whatever they want as long as they don't attack Russian businesses. And of course, don't forget the Nigerian princes that desperately need your help to get their family's fortune out of their country.
 
I got a call from an Indian call center regarding "updating my medical records". I knew it was a fraud because for one, my insurance wouldn't do this and neither would my doctor's office.

I told the woman on the other end of the phone that she needs to speak to Ms. Vogel since I don't handle that information. With the woman on the phone, I quietly slipped the phone inside my Vogel 177 T (177 cm) grand piano and played the loudest E-flat major chord I could, accurately too, in all registers on the piano.

The phone was disconnected on the other end when I picked it up. ;-)
 
Well, so far "not owning" the internet connection has kept them from my PC.

The piano is about as far as you want to go. My fear is that if you get them too mad they may buy just the
right chunk of black code to wipe out your PC in one go. That is why I remain Internet dark.
 
boleyd said:
Well, so far "not owning" the internet connection has kept them from my PC.

The piano is about as far as you want to go. My fear is that if you get them too mad they may buy just the
right chunk of black code to wipe out your PC in one go. That is why I remain Internet dark.
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I don't have the other tools to do it, although I thought about it. The pros have virtual machines set up for this and sit on the phone all day. My patience for sitting on the phone all day is nil if not in the negative range if it's on a scale from 0 to 10, besides this was on the phone anyway and not through an email or via a pop-up on the web.

The phone calls are annoying because my elderly father will pick up the phone and talk with these people. I've intervened a few times already but I know this isn't always going to be successful.

The problem is the sheer number of these call centers and corruption. The pros have done a great job taking these call centers down, reporting them to the police, and so on, but there's a lot of local corruption where they are located where the officials look the other way and let the perps go after an envelope, promise, and a wink are exchanged. The scam baiter Jim Browning showed this play out in real time with his 4-part series. In one video, the call center shut down just before the police showed up and then opened up again after they left. There are hundreds of these call centers where the workers get pennies per day and put in many, many hours for nothing. In the end, it's not only the people that get scammed that get hurt, but also the workers where they are held over a barrel to produce a certain number of "sales" per day and are terminated for the slightest reason.

Oh, my piano is still in tune after that FFFF - Fortississississimo chords. There's nothing like balancing them and playing accurately so the sound was loud but not harsh and also crystal clear. My late piano teacher would've been pleased by that performance. ;-)
 
JCitron said:
The phone calls are annoying because my elderly father will pick up the phone and talk with these people
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I don't know if it would help in your case, but my wife's aunt has a stepdaughter and her husband living with her. Before they moved in, she got endless calls, most notably from people trying to sell Medicare Advantage plans. They would start as early as 6:30 in the morning. When they moved in, they got a new number, and it uses a whitelist. No calls go through except from approved callers. It has made things much quieter, and she is safe from phone scammers.
 
JCitron said:
The phone calls are annoying because my elderly father will pick up the phone and talk with these people. I've intervened a few times already but I know this isn't always going to be successful.
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We unplugged our landline telephone some years ago (but kept the landline for internet use only) to stop annoying calls including from a relative with severe mental issues. We have never reconnected it.

All our voice contacts are now through mobile (cell) phones and we only answer an incoming call if the caller is already in our number address book. If they are an unknown number and do not leave a voice message (and scammers never do) then the call was obviously not important enough for them so it is not important enough for us either - we delete it.

Our Telco will label incoming calls with messages such as "Potential Scam" or "Potential Fraud" if the calling number has been reported to them as a scam/fraud.
 
At home we have a system now that actually says "Call from potential SPAM". We also don't answer our phone unless we know the number, and we enter common numbers into the phonebook on the phone system.
 
My phone system does the same but my father picks up the spam calls anyway. I picked up this one by mistake because a friend of mine still calls the land line even though she mostly calls me on my mobile phone. I misread the number and picked the phone up. The scammer paid for it though. ;-)

We're planning on moving to 100% mobile and ditching the land line, but we need to find a phone dad can see. At 90 in a few months, his eyesight isn't good and we need to find a large-size phone for him. I have a Galaxy S4 Ultra and even I have a difficult time seeing the text on that and that phone is nearly as big as a tablet.
 
Forester1 said:
I don't know if it would help in your case, but my wife's aunt has a stepdaughter and her husband living with her. Before they moved in, she got endless calls, most notably from people trying to sell Medicare Advantage plans. They would start as early as 6:30 in the morning. When they moved in, they got a new number, and it uses a whitelist. No calls go through except from approved callers. It has made things much quieter, and she is safe from phone scammers.
Click to expand...
Xfinity has a whitelist as well and we've reached its limit. The scammers also use VOIP systems and spoof known good numbers, which is really annoying, and the system blocks the callback 2pE system used by my health insurance. When I need to log into my account, I have to go into Xfinity's website, login, disable the spam blocker, get the code from my insurance company, then reenable the spam blocking again. It's a good thing we have multi-tab browsers and I have two monitors.
 
JCitron said:
My phone system does the same but my father picks up the spam calls anyway. I picked up this one by mistake because a friend of mine still calls the land line even though she mostly calls me on my mobile phone. I misread the number and picked the phone up. The scammer paid for it though. ;-)

We're planning on moving to 100% mobile and ditching the land line, but we need to find a phone dad can see. At 90 in a few months, his eyesight isn't good and we need to find a large-size phone for him. I have a Galaxy S4 Ultra and even I have a difficult time seeing the text on that and that phone is nearly as big as a tablet.
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A VOIP system can use something that looks like a conventional phone but can still have a white list. Might be worth thinking about.

Cheerio John
 
Ask why - Why are you not frequently robbed? Answer, Jail Penalties.

The Internet is a den of thieves with NO Jail. That is, no penalties and thus no enforcement! Given the thousands of scammers working Right Now it is a reflection of a society with no criminal penalty enforcement.

Citizens are robbed by these thieves practically every hour, if not minute, and nobody does anything. The crooks have a wondaful time terrorizing the public and ripping them off. While the suckers spend millions on prevention and NOTHING on prevention. The risk for the scammer is next to zero. What presentation of the cost for a good or a service is allocated for security. You want to lower prices, put the crooks in jail. We u=sed to be satisfied by "lock & key: security!
 
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