Twenty five percent of broadband users targeted by technical scam

It has been revealed in a recent report that around twenty five percent of broadband users in the UK are being targeted by a technical support scam.

The Internet provides us with a huge number of benefits, and for many businesses and consumers being without broadband these days simply wouldn’t be an option. However, the internet has also become a breeding ground for scam artists and fraudsters, many of which prey on broadband users in order to gain valuable and sensitive information.

It has been revealed in a recent report that around twenty five percent of broadband users in the UK are being targeted by a technical scam, where they are cold called and offered technical services by a bogus company. If the broadband user agrees to the support the company then installs spyware onto the PC which can then be used to obtain sensitive information such as passwords and bank account information.

The figures were released by the PC safety campaigners, Get Safe Online, and it is thought that the scam artists could be employing as many as four hundred people to set up these bogus call centres and carry out the scam. Broadband users are being urged to be vigilant about cold callers that contact them to offer technical services, and to keep an eye out for pop up windows that offer virus checks whilst they are using the Internet.

Sharon Lemon OBE, Deputy Director, Cyber Crime, Serious and Organised Crime Agency, said: “This is big business. In recent cases, we have seen gangs employing 300-400 people to run their operations and using call centre-scale set ups to target victims en masse. They can also be paying out as much as $150,000 a month (on a pay per download basis) to individual webmasters who are unwittingly advertising their fake software – this level of investment from criminals indicates that the returns are much heftier than this.”