Security researcher tus the tables on cyber-scammers - CNET

Enlarge Image

Have you ever gotten a phone call, email or pop-up from someone trying to scam you with an obviously non-existent problem with your computer that will be expensive to solve?

French security researcher Ivan Kwiatkowski knows how you feel, but he wasn't content with hanging up or uttering a few choice words of reprimand. He decided to give them a taste of their own medicine, as he described in a blog earlier this month.

The tech support scam has been around for the better part of a decade, bilking an estimated 3.3 million people in the US out of more than $1.5 billion in 2015, according to Microsoft. Your typical scam, as described by security software maker Malwarebytes, is pretty simple: Pretend to be from a reputable company such as Microsoft, trick the victim with phony error messages and then collect money with the promise of resolving the issue.

But when his parents received a waing that their computer was infected with the Zeus virus, Kwiatkowski decided to have some fun, booting up a virtual machine and calling the tech support number listed. Following the support rep's instructions, Kwiatkowski downloaded a remote-assistance client that gave Patricia -- his support rep -- access to the files on the virtual machine.

She begins berating him about his poor computer hygiene. Staying in character, he innocently spars with Patricia about an alleged hacker she has identified as attached to his computer, her location, and even basic computer definitions. But he throws her for a loop when asks where in Paris he can purchase the $190 software necessary to repair his system. She informs him that it's an exclusive program "distributed only through Microsoft's premium partners and Microsoft's secure channels."