Scams have been around since the dawn of time … yes you millennials, even before computers! But computers, and the Internet, due to their complexity and universality, have given scammers huge opportunities to swindle us. And, I am sad to say, they have taken these opportunities and made them into big business.
I will identify some of the approaches that scammers are taking, and say how to recognize a scam.
We can encounter scams via email (spam), web ads (side-bars and popups), malware, cold calls, and support-centres-gone-rogue.
The hardest spam scams to identify are those that appear to be from legitimate sources. Watch out for typos, poor spelling/grammar, incredulous claims/offers, suspicious links, suspicious attachments, and combinations of the above. I got an email (actually 3) from CRA today that passed all the tests, except for the attachment: it had a Word document with active content that I was not about to enable. Suspicious links point to websites not reflected by the link text. Suspicious attachments are file types like ZIP, EXE (executable), JS (JavaScript), or DOC/DOCX (Word). Just opening files of these types can run malicious code on your computer.
Be wary of any phone call or popup that suggests your computer is infected with malware. You should only trust your antivirus (know its name!), or your local technician, to report infections. Do NOT call the number listed on the scam window … ignore the content of that window and either close it (End Task or Force Quit), or reboot to see if it reappears.
I feel I need to explain, again, that there are phone call scams—where they call you—and SCGR (support centers gone rogue) scams—where you called them but they aren’t who they purport to be. Please, please, please … Unless you are getting specific support for a specific issue from a known remote source, do not hand control of your computer over to someone you don’t know!
Please pass this on to your friends, neighbours, and relatives so we can reduce the proliferation of these scams.