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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: Tgell on March 15, 2012, 03:35:08 AM

Title: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Tgell on March 15, 2012, 03:35:08 AM
Came across this avast blog about unsolicited phone calls asking to take control of the computer. Now it is obvious that most of the people that own avast have not seen this blog.

https://blog.avast.com/2012/03/12/you-call-us-we-wont-unsolicited-call-you/

Now to a hypothetical question. What happens if a person randomly calls people using the phone book hoping that somebody is using avast knowing the amount of people that have it installed. He then points out through social engineering that there is a problem with her computer saying he was a rep from the persons ISP or as the blog states from avast customer service. Then they ask the person to let them use the remote assistant feature and then take control of the computer planting malware including key loggers. Does this sound like something that is feasible? Now I don't know how many people have upgraded to 7 but it seems to me after some time, a majority of people will have 7 and the ability to remote login by unscrupulous people using social engineering will be a concern. Maybe I am just crying wolf.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: AntiVirusASeT on March 15, 2012, 04:13:01 AM
well, the number of Avast! users is still few compared to the internet population  ::). In my opinion, quite a stupid way to scam ppl with that method (no offence)  :).

secondly, ppl should educate themselves that ethical companies should never phone ppl and more importantly, ask for anything personal (in this case, access to ur computer) when there is no form of verification for the other party as the appropriate authority.

also, with Avast! remote control, the person who allows control of his computer to another person is able to terminate the control any time he feels something is suspicious.

lastly, the likelyhood that ppl falling to such scams is much much smaller than the number of ppl who will gain from legitimate help from their more technical friends, or even helpful forum members in here  ;)
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Tgell on March 15, 2012, 04:23:07 PM
Makes me wonder how these people that represented themselves as avast customer service got the phone numbers of avast customers.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Gopher John on March 15, 2012, 04:41:49 PM
Makes me wonder how these people that represented themselves as avast customer service got the phone numbers of avast customers.

Maybe robocalls, and got lucky. :P  More likely, someone put too much personal information in their profile with their real name and location. :P  A phone number lookup on the web, and there it is.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: DavidR on March 15, 2012, 06:28:20 PM
It could just as easily be another common AV or even MS, as this telephone scam has been done before.

As they say in the blog article, avast or its representatives don't call you out of the blue, unless you had previously contacted them and asked them to ring you back, etc.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Gopher John on March 15, 2012, 06:46:24 PM
If the potential victim had previously called iYogi, the phone number and the fact that the target also used Avast would be readily known by any iYogi employee.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Gargamel360 on March 15, 2012, 07:00:11 PM
If the potential victim had previously called iYogi, the phone number and the fact that the target also used Avast would be readily known by any iYogi employee.
Its a little worse than that....according to this>>http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/03/aghast-at-avasts-iyogi-support/ , https://blog.avast.com/2012/03/12/you-call-us-we-wont-unsolicited-call-you/ , apparently (but not surprisingly) info was leaked, leading to scam call attempts....which lead to this>>https://blog.avast.com/2012/03/15/iyogi-support-service-removed/
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Gopher John on March 15, 2012, 07:26:49 PM
Thanks for the link to the krebsonsecurity article.  I hadn't seen it before.  I hope that Avast doesn't return to iYogi for support, although in the Steckler blog article said that they would work with iYogi to see if it could be relaunched.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: AntiVirusASeT on March 15, 2012, 07:47:40 PM
its good to see that Avast does care about quality.

if iYogi comes back...really hope they learnt well from this as a warning from Avast and purge the unethical reps from their support.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Gopher John on March 15, 2012, 08:42:04 PM
iYogi reps probably were simply iYogi corporate policy.  Otherwise, the problems wouldn't have been so widespread and would have been nipped inhouse before Avast had to drop them.
Title: Re: avast Remote Assistance
Post by: Techy_mOm on March 24, 2012, 12:01:02 AM
I've gotten a few similar calls but none of them claimed to be coming from Avast, they're all claiming to be calling from Microsoft, the remote control software they wanted me to use was ammyy, there's a ton of these complaints on sites like whycall.me (http://whycall.me), but I don't think your scenario is worth their trouble, Avast is one of the top AV out there but it's much easier to just say they're calling from microsoft, unless they have a list of Avast customers which would make their scam laser targeted.