I went out on a call in Round Rock, TX recently for a client who ran into a scam using Ammyy Admin software.  Part of what is troubling about this scam is that the Ammyy Admin software is legitimate and was even highlighted by Lifehacker.

Here’s how the scam works:

You get a phone call from someone who either claims to be from Microsoft or in some way affiliated with Microsoft or maybe even from the company you buy your internet from.  The caller tells you that they’ve had reports of computer viruses on machines in your area and they need to connect to your machine.  To connect they have you download the Ammyy software and you read a number off your screen.

Once they are in the caller will run a program, such as Windows Event Viewer or the caller will run his own software, to show you “all the errors and viruses and Trojans your computer has”.  Now is when the caller will make you an offer.  The caller will offer to give you a program to fix it, or maybe the caller will ofter to remove the problems manually, but either way it will cost you $$$.  When I was researching this scam, I found that sometimes the caller will even offer you a 5 or 10 year contract for “support” services.

One way to identify that this is a scam is the part where a stranger calls you telling you they know  you have a virus on your machine.  Well, unless they put it there the caller can’t know this kind of thing for certain.

This scam has been going on for a while and you can read about people who have had run ins with scammers here:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=280935

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101025021905AA5KAD7