It’s being reported at Mercury News and on Microsoft’s security website that there is a growing trend of people receiving unsolicited phone calls from someone purporting to be a Technical Support Specialist from either Microsoft or other large computer company.  But the instructions they give people to “fix” their computers actually installs remote access software without the owner’s knowledge which allows the scammer to take control of the computer at a later time for either collecting personal information, sending spam, or worse.

This is very unfortunate and disconcerting for folks, like myself, who are in the Support business as it can make current and potential clients leery of Support calls as well as some of the tools we use to provide service.  The ability to access a client’s desktop remotely saves both time and money for both the client and support personnel.

Legitimate tech support folks should never install any program or application without the approval and knowledge of their client.  Especially remote access software.  In fact, in most cases where remote access software does get installed, we set it up so that the client must purposely start it before we can connect to their desktops to help them.  It’s only in those cases where a client wants us to have odd hour and ad-hoc access to system is the remote access software left running.

As for unsolicited support calls, my advice is to validate the caller.  If you don’t know them, either check with someone who should, or ask the support technician to call back through their regular contact or liaison with your company.