{"id":8887,"date":"2018-06-26T08:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/?p=8887"},"modified":"2024-07-08T06:05:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-08T10:05:53","slug":"beware-of-tech-support-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2018\/06\/26\/beware-of-tech-support-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware of tech support scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 500px; overflow: auto;\" src=\"\/\/players.brightcove.net\/1087587715001\/Vy0NWmo9x_default\/index.html?videoId=4899661696001\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Have you ever seen a pop-up on your computer or received an unsolicited call urging you to contact \u201ctech support?\u201d Scammers sometimes impersonate IT support staff and claim something is wrong with your computer. They offer to help fix the problem\u2014for a fee\u2014but instead may steal your personal information or infect your computer with malicious software. This can happen through pop-ups on the web or phone calls. Visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.consumer.ftc.gov\/articles\/0346-tech-support-scams\">Tech Support Scams<\/a> for more info.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Pop-Ups on the Web<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You may see alarming pop-ups (some of which include audio) while using your web browser.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pop-up claims your computer is infected or may block use of the browser.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You are urged to call a phone number for tech support assistance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the number is called, a person offers to \u201cfix&#8221; the problem for a fee.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><strong>Solution: Close the pop-ups.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><strong>Phone calls<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li>You may receive phone calls from con artists claiming to be tech support from Microsoft, Dell, and other major software and computer companies.<\/li>\n<li>The callers may claim that they have detected viruses or other problems on your computer and offer to &#8220;fix&#8221; the problems for a fee.<\/li>\n<li>They may try to convince you to give them permission to run a program giving them remote access to the computer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Solution: Hang up the phone.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>If you got caught<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/its.umich.edu\/accounts-access\/uniqnames-passwords\/umich-password\">Change your UMICH (Level-1) password<\/a> (and other passwords you may have provided) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.safecomputing.umich.edu\/report-it-security-incident\">report an IT security incident<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff Have you ever seen a pop-up on your computer or received an unsolicited call urging you to contact \u201ctech support?\u201d Scammers sometimes impersonate IT support staff and claim something is wrong with your computer. They offer to help fix the problem\u2014for a fee\u2014but instead may steal your personal information or infect your computer with malicious software. This\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/2018\/06\/26\/beware-of-tech-support-scams\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":8889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_umich_oidc_access":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[500,23],"class_list":["post-8887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safe-computing","tag-scams","tag-security"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin-125x70.png",125,70,true],"medium":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin-300x168.png",300,168,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"large":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"excerpt-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin-200x140.png",200,140,true],"themonic-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin-60x42.png",60,42,true],"ioslider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false],"400x250-crop":["https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/TechSupportScams-Matthew-Martin.png",383,214,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Matt Martin, ITS Privacy Office","author_link":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/author\/mattmart\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\ufeff Have you ever seen a pop-up on your computer or received an unsolicited call urging you to contact \u201ctech support?\u201d Scammers sometimes impersonate IT support staff and claim something is wrong with your computer. They offer to help fix the problem\u2014for a fee\u2014but instead may steal your personal information or infect your computer with&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8887"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8900,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8887\/revisions\/8900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigan.it.umich.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}