Scam Of The Week: Fake Windows 10 Upgrade

By now, we should all have learned a lesson, any major Operating System or high profile application upgrades usually cause confusion among end-users and the current Windows 10 upgrade is no exception. The bad guys are exploiting this confusions in several ways, mostly through massive phishing campaigns and with criminal call-center operations which claim to be Microsoft tech support. We have noticed a lot of phishing emails, looting user to download free version of Windows 10.

The bad guys are using very clever ways to worry the user that their PC has changed somehow, causing unsecure access issues. Other phishing emails will try to lure the user with links where they can get their new no-charge version of Windows 10, or have it "attached" in a zipped file, which makes it our Scam Of The Week, because the attachment is the CBT-Locker ransomware.

Unfortunately there are no limits to criminal inventiveness. I will recommend you send something like the following to your end-users and/or friends and family. Copy/paste/edit as needed, per your own policies related to OS upgrades:

"Microsoft is in the process of releasing their new Windows 10 Operating System. This is an upgrade that you do not pay for, promises to fix problems with earlier versions, and claims to be more secure. They plan to upgrade a billion personal computers, causing inevitable confusion among PC users.

"Bad guys are trying to exploit this confusion. You might get calls from scammers that claim to be Microsoft tech support and try to charge you for the upgrade using your credit card.

"Be very careful with any email claiming to be from Microsoft about "your Windows 10 Upgrade". Make sure that any links in the email really go to Microsoft. Better yet, do not click on any link or open any attachment, but go to the Microsoft website for more information." Here is the link: Click here

We are holding off upgrading our clients to Windows 10 until a LOT of field testing has been done. We’ve been running it on a machine at the office and there are good reasons not to rush into the upgrade, because of some new features like the "Windows Update Delivery Optimization (WUDO) which works like torrents do, and makes your Win10 machine part of a peer-to-peer network delivering Win10 to other users using your bandwidth, and the new "Wi-Fi Sense" which makes Wi-Fi more available and accessible - for better or for worse.