Los Alamos
You have probably heard of anti-virus programs like Norton, McAfee, etc. but did you know these can be used to compromise your home network?
No, not a backdoor in the software or anything like that, something a lot simpler.
Anti-virus themed phishing scams are currently “king of the hill” and one of the top ways your home network, and bank account, might be compromised.
How does this scam work? You might get a phone call, or an email, about an invoice for a popular anti-virus service.
Most common are the email scams.
If you got an email like the above pictured, what would you do? It’s threatening right off the bat, looks like you will be charged $350 for a service you may not even use. The goal here is to get you to panic. Most of these emails don’t include a phishing link, they just have a phone number to call. The sending address of the email might look like Norton at first, but usually it’s from a Gmail address, or another free email provider. The key here is not to panic, to stop and think before you freak out and interact with the email.
What will happen if you call the number, or click the link? The scammers will install remote access software on your machine and use this to steal your personal information. Once a scammer has remote access to your machine, they can get whatever they want.
In recent news, an elderly woman in North Carolina was scammed out of $160,000 by a caller claiming to be from…
