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Telephone scams dial Inuvik
Callers attempt to access residents' computers, personal information
Katherine Hudson Northern News Services Published Thursday, March 1, 2012
If she had stayed on the line and done what he asked of her, all of her personal and financial information could have been stolen. A few residents in town have received these types of calls recently, where a professional-sounding male explains the company he works for has noticed a threat to the resident's computer, where personal information is being uploaded to the Internet. The caller then offers to work with the resident to stop it. However, by following the phone scammer's instructions, that's exactly what might happen. Harlow said she stayed on the phone with the man as he explained where in her control panel of her desktop to go. The man said "I can help you fix this but you have to ask me." Harlow asked how much it would cost and the man said it was free. The next step was for Harlow to go to a website which she said had something to do with the word "team." This was when Harlow hung up. After having worked in PC support about 20 years ago, she recognized what type of website it was – a remote-access program that would allow the caller access to her computer. "I knew that wasn't good. I stopped there," she said. "You (the scammer) can do anything then. You're taking over their hard drive and can get anything you want. You're actually taking over control of their computer," she said. Harlow called the RCMP, and then heard back from the caller later the same day. She told him she had called the RCMP and hung up the phone. "A few people I've talked to since then said they've been called recently as well," she said. "I'm not a tech geek but I'm not illiterate on the PC either. He sounded so official. You're thinking, if he is legit, I don't want to be ignoring this." Harlow then e-mailed the information technology department of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, where her husband works, and then created a post on an Inuvik open group Facebook site stating what had happened. "All I could think of was people like my mother or my husband's father. They don't have a clue. They would just so easily do what this guy said." Laura Worsley-Brown, director of corporate relations with the IRC, said an e-mail was promptly sent out to staff warning them of the potential threats. "The IT guys, when they became aware of this, they alerted staff to be careful with their private information and just call the RCMP if they got any strange calls," she said. Const. Brent MacDonald with the commercial crime unit based in Yellowknife, said although he hasn't heard about this new wave of scams, during this time of year it makes sense that the scammers are at it again. "It's around tax time and people are doing their online taxes and stuff, so all those things would be saved on their desktop. It's probably why it's kind of come around again," he said. He said over the years there have been a few calls reported and although the majority of people in the territory hang up, there have been cases where people have actually given the caller remote access to their computer. "If you're contacted by a company that says they're your Internet security or your service provider, ask them who they are. Half the time, they don't even know who the service providers are here in the Northwest Territories. "If you don't trust them or you think they're suspicious, hang up the phone and call your actual service provider to see if it was them who had called." He said people should treat their computer's IP address as they would their personal information because once someone gets a hold of that, they can get onto the computer and have free rein of any online banking information or tax information that may be stored within.
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