AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

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EvilGrins
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AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by EvilGrins » Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:50 pm

Other day I got an update for my AVGfree that said my free trial had expired and now AVG was named Avast. Seemed weird, so I went to them on Facebook and left them a message and a screenshot about it, then went to work.

Got back from work late, wee hours of the morning, went to bed... and was awakened by my cellphone 2½ hours later.

Call was from AVG's IT guy, said he'd walk me through fixing the problem. Keeping in mind I wasn't operating off much sleep, the only reason I can think of I didn't make a big deal about the fact that this guy was rapid-fire telling me a whole bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with the problem I reported... he setup remote access to my system and I accepted that.

Not that unusual. IT folks do this all the time, I've even walked my mom through it when someone did the same on her system.

However, this time wasn't standard. After saying he was clearing some stuff up on my system and then that he needed to reboot, when my computer finished booting up a window popped up asking me for a password. I got awake REALLY FAST at that point, and called him back to ask what was going on.

He explained very calmly that he had cleared my system of issues, that everything would function as it should, and that if I didn't send him $100 he would delete every single thing off my hard drive and purge my system until it was as blank as when I first got it.

Actually, my computer was never blank... several upgrades and all, it's still got info from the 1st comp I had back in the late 1980's... but I digress.

I've had RansomWare a couple times in the past, usually it's a screen claiming to be some law enforcement agency asking me to wire them money or I can't have my system back... but this was the first time I had an active actual person do it to me.

When I refused to pay, and then explained with the countdown he provided (he initially gave me a time limit) I couldn't make it to the store on time due to distance and my lack of car, he said he'd increase the length of time on the countdown. I told his new time was still insufficient. He then said I could do this more directly with a credit card...

...like I'd give him a credit card number.

I told him I didn't have a credit card, whereupon he hung up after telling me all my content on my computer would be gone soon. By this time my computer was no longer plugged into the wall and I'd disconnected the wireless... but now I had no computer.

...and I was just getting back into playing UT too.

I've since confirmed he wasn't with AVG, that he was in no way affiliated with them (though I'm fuzzy how he knew I filed an issue and got my phone number) and the RansomWare he put on my system I should be able to get off by Saturday, possibly Friday. When not able to get it off myself (provided I can get a command prompt I find ComboFix very effective) I've a friend who's been fixing/updating my computer for years who's helped me with RansomWare before.

Wanna know the weird thing?

That bogus IT-guy has called back a few times trying to re-negotiate his price despite the fact I keep saying I won't pay.

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by a nameless entity » Fri Jun 22, 2018 2:32 pm

What a scary story.

Were you able to track that guy down and find out who and where he is?

I'd guess that this fake IT guy found you by searching around in Face Book.

So it's not really AVG/AVAST's fault, wouldn't you say?
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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by medor » Sat Jun 23, 2018 1:30 am

Bitdefender is the best for cleaning if you want to search all on your pc :wink:

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by EvilGrins » Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:19 pm

medor wrote:Bitdefender is the best for cleaning if you want to search all on your pc :wink:
I'll keep that in mind after Mike gets my new/fixed computer back to me.
a nameless entity wrote:Were you able to track that guy down and find out who and where he is?

So it's not really AVG/AVAST's fault, wouldn't you say?
No, it's not but I was in a mood when I was typing the subject line.

I've got a number on the guy, tracks to somewhere in NY but it may well be a burner or signal is bumped from somewhere else. Indian accent, talks really fast, has at least stopped pestering me with more negotiating.

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by a nameless entity » Mon Jun 25, 2018 7:28 pm

AVG was bought out by the AVAST! company last year. That's why they wanted to switch you to Avast when your free trial ran out, I would suppose.

Avast is, or was still considered the best FREE anti virus program. Remember this thread?

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3887

I still strongly recommend the Malware Bytes free scanner too. I used to run it before I shut down my PC at the end of the day. I really liked its "chameleon" mode too. Once or twice over the years some piece of malware got in that wouldn't let me run Malware Bytes from its icon or the start menu. So I'd go to my start menu and start choosing the chameleon program names and go down the list until one worked and started the program. Then it was bye bye malware! :)
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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by EvilGrins » Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:20 pm

a nameless entity wrote:I still strongly recommend the Malware Bytes free scanner too.
I was running them both for awhile, but AVG kept deleting MB for some reason.

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by Hook » Fri Jun 29, 2018 8:18 am

EvilGrins wrote:
a nameless entity wrote:I still strongly recommend the Malware Bytes free scanner too.
I was running them both for awhile, but AVG kept deleting MB for some reason.
Probably a built in competition destroyer LOL :lol:

FYI - My grandson still runs AVG, as Hermskii told him to do several years ago.
He hasn't had any problems at all - yet.
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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by a nameless entity » Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:10 pm

EvilGrins wrote:
a nameless entity wrote:I still strongly recommend the Malware Bytes free scanner too.
I was running them both for awhile, but AVG kept deleting MB for some reason.
That problem never surfaced with Avast while I was using it. And even if it did, one could always just tell Avast to leave MB alone, and stop reporting it as a virus. :|
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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by Nelsona » Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:59 am

Ignoring a bit the wrong title here, I think AVG doesn't leads to nobody evil, but for sure PHISHING and links spoofing will do that. Does any of you have habits to CLICK "links" because they do look original ? It's a bad practice, clicking generally. Take your time and read a bit here how simple can be done link spoofing and masked for human eye as something needed and innocent. Seriously...
https://thehackernews.com/2018/06/email ... ction.html
I repeat, look well over there and draw conclusions.
The rest of "remote support" doesn't need more words...

Edit: Memory cheating.
I forgot what I could see by myself at random after visiting some "web-site". Any of such (update) hosts - if it's crafted properly in hosts file (or elsewhere) makes possible opening a FAKE "update" site which is a clone of original as it do looks like, from where ransomware can be loaded and installed correctly. Who did the update to the hosts ? - Maybe that so called remote "support". As a mater of fact there are "solutions", an evil web-site will not need to get clicks from visitor, by only accessing it you might go in troubles, and then good luck with Web surfing, sailors...
As another fact there are pretty much posted instructions/educational stuff in how to crack and hack around, to not forget what does the "high-speed" addiction. Gigabit Networks are candidates to some attacks which at this moment are hard to mitigate due to default hardware flaws existent nowadays. DDR3 memories have flaws by themselves - take the breakfast; CPU have flaws, applications are poorly coded. Do you really feel secured ? Do you think that you have privacy ? A lot of data breaches have been encountered in these last years.

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by Hermskii » Fri Dec 14, 2018 3:34 am

That is the worst thing I have heard in a long time. My uncle fell for this same crap TWICE!

Microsoft will never call you. No real computer company will ever call you. They might call you back if you call them but otherwise don't fall for a call saying they are trying to help you. Don't ever let someone remotely control your PC unless you know them like a brother! Poor EG!
~Peace~

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Re: AVGfree leads to eeeeevil!

Post by Hook » Tue Dec 18, 2018 3:54 pm

Hermskii wrote:
Fri Dec 14, 2018 3:34 am
That is the worst thing I have heard in a long time. My uncle fell for this same crap TWICE!

Microsoft will never call you. No real computer company will ever call you. They might call you back if you call them but otherwise don't fall for a call saying they are trying to help you. Don't ever let someone remotely control your PC unless you know them like a brother! Poor EG!
Good Advice! :wink:
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