FTC And Sopa Swing Scythes At Spyware Scammers

A host of allegedly fake tech support scams have been caught out in the US by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has been working alongside the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in the UK.

Law enforcement, public sector bodies and tech vendors collaborated to catch groups who had using telemarketers claiming to be from major IT companies, who apparently conned people into believing they had malware or spyware on their machines. They would then trick users into downloading security tools that did nothing, but still charged for them, according to the FTC.

The FTC said yesterday a US judge had ordered a halt to six alleged tech support scams, freezing their assets. Tens of thousands of consumers were thought to have been duped.

An Indian spyware scam?

The US regulator said most of the scam operations were based out of India, targeting English-speaking people, including those in the UK. One of them didn’t rely on calling victims, however. It tricked consumers by placing ads on Google which appeared when consumers searched for their computer company’s tech support number.

The scammers claimed to be from a variety of major tech giants, including Dell, Microsoft, McAfee, and Norton, charging anything between $49 to $450 for “assistance”, according to the FTC. The body claimed the tricksters used 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers to avoid law enforcement.

The FTC thanked SOCA for its assistance, whilst Microsoft and other vendors were praised for their “investigative assistance”.

“The FTC has been aggressive – and successful – in its pursuit of tech support scams,” said FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz.  “And the tech support scam artists we are talking about today have taken scareware to a whole other level of virtual mayhem.”

Earlier this week, the FTC announced a $163 million (£101m) fine on the operators of a “scareware” business that tricked computer users into thinking their machines were infected with malware, and then sold them a “fix”.

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