Can a scammer access your PC if he decides upon revenge?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 25 Apr 2015 Posts: 2

Hi all

New to this forum - I read about this site in the Readers Digest!

I would love to try some baiting for those annoying scammers who want to "improve your website and traffic". Or maybe these aren't really scammers, but they are incredibly annoying and I receive one of these emails every day.

But I am wondering how likely it is that scammerscan access my PC and do some damage. Has it happened to anyone here?

Thanks
LH

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 1:27 am

I'm not sure how you would bait something like that. You have to download the program that they are trying to sell, and that would most likely infect your computer with malware or a trojan -- or you would have to give them remote access to your computer so they can show you the error log that they claim shows your computer is infected with something.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Quote:

Or maybe these aren't really scammers, but they are incredibly annoying and I receive one of these emails every day

That is spam and, as OC observed, isn't baitable.

As for virii from lads or Vlads - and really, anything that you are downloading - you need to first ensure that you have a good Anti-Virus program on your PC.

Then, be careful with whatever you are downloading - even fairly straight forward sites offering game skins for Minecraft or software for watching a video can be riddled with malware that ranges from something mildly annoying like 'ad-ware' programs to incredibly destructive.

Lads often use internet cafes whose PCs are full of viruses of every description - the lads don't send them on purpose, but they are still there.

Vlads tend to be intentionally vindictive - they are based out of the former Soviet Bloc countries and often use trojans in their phishing.

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 2:13 am

These viruses have been known to even spill out of virtual machines before and infect the host computer.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 13 Jan 2014 Posts: 698

In the past, I've tried setting up a sandbox, but found it to just got in the way. I store most of my stuff in Dropbox, in the vague hope that this provides some protection, and this laptop is used exclusively for scambaiting.

The only inbound nasties I've ever experienced are of the 'ad-ware' type, which seem to be efficiently zapped by my AV program.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 25 Apr 2015 Posts: 2

Thanks all for your replies. I guess the sort of mail I'm talking about is not really scammer mail, although they definitely to offer a "trial service" to increase my website traffic, or they offer a discount of some sort. Drives me mad.

For now, I will just enjoy reading all your scam stories.

Cheers
LG

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3876

I wonder what would happen, if you give such a lad access to your pc, which has a linux-install, that mimics the look and feel of win XP.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/04/windows-xp-theme-lubuntu

he could start messing around with the system, but would be unable to run windows-software (including windows-malware).

it would even be possible to run it in an VM.

the only problem which I see: get a lad to call you on a baiting-phone at a time when it pleases you.

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 2:11 pm

^ There's a few videos like that on youtube, the one like your suggestion I was a guy in ZA set up a VMware Player Windows 8 Guest OS and was on the phone to a ladette who used remote desktop to install some freeware anti virus and then tried to charge him $395 for an annual subscription.

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:05 pm

So long as you keep your virus checker up to date, dont open zips or exe files they send and keep security setting for remote access as disabled. Then i really dont see a random lad could do.

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