02/07/2024
🚨 SCAM ALERT: What your fingers say about your personality and the Microsoft pop-up scam🚨
Microsoft pop-up scams are not new, they’ve been around for over a decade, but Australians continue to lose large sums of money to them, particularly in the last month where there was over $1.1 million in losses reported to IDCARE from this scam type😲
How it works: First, the criminal needs you to click on a link which redirects you to their fake website. These links are often disguised in interesting articles which are “sponsored” on platforms like Facebook and appear in your feed. You want to read more, so you click on the link, and you are directed to their fake website.
In the last week, we had clients report they saw an article advertised on Facebook about how “your finger positioning determines your personality”. Who doesn’t want to know if a long middle finger could be linked to anger outbursts, our other interesting personality traits. Another article was disguised as a news article talking about the discovery of a missing aircraft.
Seconds after clicking on the article – your computer screen freezes, alarms go off and warnings appear about “viruses” or “trojans” or problems with the person’s computer security. As the person desperately tries to close the screen, a Microsoft pop-up appears with a 1800 number to call Microsoft. The pop-up looks like it would come from Microsoft, using their logos, colours and the same kind of wording. Seemingly unable to navigate out of the frozen page, the person dials the number and reaches the scammer.
In about 80% of these cases, the scammer persuades the person to give them remote access to their device to “fix” the problem.
What can you do to prevent this? Firstly, be very careful clicking on interesting articles you see pop-up in your social media feed. If you see something you want to read, and it looks like it is from a reputable news site, go to the news site directly by typing it in the browser, such as abc.net.au. And if you want to know what your finger positioning or length says about your personality, there are numerous online articles with various theories, but perhaps ask your family. No doubt they’ll have an opinion.
However, if you do click on an article and your computer screen appears to freeze, and you are getting flashing warnings about your computer security and then a Microsoft pop-up appears . The easiest way to navigate out of it is turn your computer off, or disconnect your device from the internet and your computer should run as normal, as long as you don’t return to the dodgy page. It’s also a good idea to run an antivirus scan. And if you have engaged and provided remote access, contact your financial institution to let them know as soon as possible, and call IDCARE for additional support.
