A guest at my house in the USA searched on the internet for a contact number to the Best Buy Geek squad. The search engine suggested the phone number to realgeek.org which is not the Best Buy organisation or part of it. The guest rang the number RealGeek contact number 864 302 5703 where they were given the advice to ring the telephone number 406 221 2277.
After speaking to the person who answered that number and believing they were talking to the Geek Squad at Best Buy the guest requested help on a file transfer. The "technician" advised using Remote Access as the way to solve the problem and requested all fire walls should be disabled. The guest agreed and enabled RA and turned off the firewall on their computer.
As soon as I discovered what had occured two hours later I turned off all computers attached to network. I rang the phone numbers above, the 406 number first. That number had been disabled and no longer had a subscriber. Presumably a skype number or similar. The other 864 number put me in touch with "Real Geek" and after about three minutes explanation of who I was and why I was ringing they put the phone down and I was disconnected.
Attempts to regain contact failed. I therefore presume the worse that this is a deliberate attempt to access all or some of the computers of people who ring requesting help. Likely targets' are sent to hackers who then reccommend Remote Access and use they access they gain to compromise the computers they are in touch with.
I have been in touch with Best Buy management and they agree that this organisation Real Geeks is nothing to do with Best Buy and the access they have gained to my guest's computer is not going to result in anything good. Best Buy were very helpful and I recorded the conversation I had with them. They were concerned but obviously this was not their fault. In their opinion although my guest provided Remote Access to their own computer the rest of the network was not necessarily compromised. But obviously they could have done anything they wanted during the 2-3 hours they had access and it was reccommended that the computer went through a thorough "clean" before further use.
The lesson is be careful who you give access to via Remote Access and always check very, very carefully which company you are talking to.
RealGeeks, LLC. Reviews
A guest at my house in the USA searched on the internet for a contact number to the Best Buy Geek squad. The search engine suggested the phone number to realgeek.org which is not the Best Buy organisation or part of it. The guest rang the number RealGeek contact number 864 302 5703 where they were given the advice to ring the telephone number 406 221 2277.
After speaking to the person who answered that number and believing they were talking to the Geek Squad at Best Buy the guest requested help on a file transfer. The "technician" advised using Remote Access as the way to solve the problem and requested all fire walls should be disabled. The guest agreed and enabled RA and turned off the firewall on their computer.
As soon as I discovered what had occured two hours later I turned off all computers attached to network. I rang the phone numbers above, the 406 number first. That number had been disabled and no longer had a subscriber. Presumably a skype number or similar. The other 864 number put me in touch with "Real Geek" and after about three minutes explanation of who I was and why I was ringing they put the phone down and I was disconnected.
Attempts to regain contact failed. I therefore presume the worse that this is a deliberate attempt to access all or some of the computers of people who ring requesting help. Likely targets' are sent to hackers who then reccommend Remote Access and use they access they gain to compromise the computers they are in touch with.
I have been in touch with Best Buy management and they agree that this organisation Real Geeks is nothing to do with Best Buy and the access they have gained to my guest's computer is not going to result in anything good. Best Buy were very helpful and I recorded the conversation I had with them. They were concerned but obviously this was not their fault. In their opinion although my guest provided Remote Access to their own computer the rest of the network was not necessarily compromised. But obviously they could have done anything they wanted during the 2-3 hours they had access and it was reccommended that the computer went through a thorough "clean" before further use.
The lesson is be careful who you give access to via Remote Access and always check very, very carefully which company you are talking to.