AMMYY Admin

[Faan]

I received a long distance call, I think from these people claiming that my PC is infected with all kinds of things because of using the internet.
One has to right click om my computer and then go to windows logs and under applications and system see a log with possibly error messages. If you do see error messages they want you to do the following:

Type www.ammyy.com into the run window. I did not do so, and the next thing was that the line got disconnected. I am scared to put anything into my PC from somebody talking to me over the phone. When looking at their website everything looks fine, but I think they are also in business to make money.

Perhaps anybody with experience with this or these people?

Faan

[Cpt Chaos]

Hi Faan,

Ammyy Admin is a remote desktop support application that is used to access your PC remotely. While downloading and installing the application is a safe process the caller will have to request you provide them with a session ID. No matter what you do do not give them any information even if you download and install the software. If you need some more help or info send me PM

[Faan]

I have not requested any help from anywhere. I just received this phone call on my landline asking me to follow the instructions the lady gave me. I saw in the log a few errors and confirmed to her that there were errors. Then the request followed to type the above website address into the "run" window. When I received this request I did not want to do it and then the line disconnected. I am not sure whether she dropped the line or whether it was a line fault.

Obviously with all the news about threats about hackers flying around I am reluctant to just do what somebody over the phone tells me to do especially if I did not ask for anything. It could be that I have to look into the problem, but I do not think the way they are doing it.

[Cpt Chaos]

Usually when you refuse to continue they will simply hang up the phone. For safety measures you can run a complete virus and malware scan just to be on the safe side. Good to hear you didn't go further with the process and these scams sure does mess up the industry

[Dave A]

It would seem the caller was a hacker trying to get you to give them remote access to your computer.

I doubt AMMYY are behind it - the hacker is just (ab)using their system.

Should I move this to the scam alert forum?

[Faan]

Perhaps you should.

I also asked the lady to send me an email, but according to her they do not do so.

[Chrisjan B]

For sure......

As said they are abusing the ammyy software....

http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/avoid-phone-scams.aspx

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/12/how-windows-tech-support-scammers-walked-right-into-a-trap-set-by-the-feds/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/mar/01/microsoft-virus-scam-continues

[Newretailer]

Yip, scam. I received a phone call this week telling me that a lot of spam was being sent from my number. I asked him how long this has been going on for and he said two days. When I told him that my landline and ADSL has been dead for 5 days, he quickly hung up too lol.

They really are getting so clever.

[twinscythe12332]

Yep. This is what is referred to as "social engineering" whereby you use someone's inexperience with IT to try and coerce them into letting them onto your system.

here's a scene from the movie "hackers" that shows a bit of social engineering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G3NT91AWUE

Yip, scam. I received a phone call this week telling me that a lot of spam was being sent from my number. I asked him how long this has been going on for and he said two days. When I told him that my landline and ADSL has been dead for 5 days, he quickly hung up too lol.

They really are getting so clever.

I'm still trying to sort out my ABSA account. After getting an email telling me that there was some issue with it, I really got into a panic. I tried to follow what the email prescribed, but ran into another issue about not being an ABSA customer. Really weird.

[Dave A]

I've just had a mate call me. He got a call from "Microsoft tech support call centre in India".

Much the same deal as described above.
We've identified you've got software problems.
We need remote access to fix it.
The charge is $80USD and please pay by credit card.

So with this crowd the game is to gain remote access to your computer and collect your credit card details!