Just as 419-ers seem to have been permanently renamed in some quarters as “the Lads from Lagos”, I wonder if we should refer to those irritating individuals who persist in ringing us to offer us help (for a not particularly small fee) with non-existent malware as the “Krooks from Kolkata” (or more recently, the Ne’erdowells from New Delhi). It would be a pity to slur an entire nation with the misdeeds of a few individuals, but the network of such scammers does seem to be expanding across the Indian continent.

Be that as it may, I’ve recently been doing a little work (in association with Martijn Grooten of Virus Bulletin) on some of the ways that PC support sites that may be associated with cold-call scams are bolstering their own credibility by questionable means. Of course, legitimate businesses are also fond of Facebook likes, testimonials and so on, but we’ve found that some of these sites are not playing altogether nicely.

I’ve posted a fairly lengthy joint blog on the topic here: Facebook Likes and cold-call scams

David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow