One of Microsoft’s Gold Partners has had its relationship with the software giant unceremoniously terminated, after being revealed to be orchestrating a telephone support scam.
Comantra, based in India, are said to have cold-called computer users in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, claiming to offer assistance in cleaning up virus infections.
The bogus support calls came from Comantra employees who claimed to be representing Microsoft, and used scare tactics to talk users into opening the Event Viewer on Windows, where a seemingly dangerous list of errors would be seen.
Once terrified by what appears to be a worrying collection of warning messages, and believing this was evidence of a malware infection, users would be tricked into allowing Comantra technicians to gain remote access to their computer, and hand over their credit card details to fix any “problems”.
In the past, vulnerable elderly people have even been told by scammers that…
Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.
Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.
