Help idiot fell for scam!

drsquarah

Hi I can't believe I fell for this but have just hung up the phone - I didn't hand over any bank details but did however allow access to my computer via the website ammyy dot com - their remote assistance programme. Want I want to do now is protect (belatedly) my computer. I couldn't find the Remote programme when i went to uninstall it so i deleted it from the start up menu. I am aware I have probably just deleted the shortcut but cannot find the programme in order to delete it properly.

What else should I do? I have so much information on the computer. So cross with myself. And so anxious...

nancyo

Dont use your online banking or input any credit card details onto your PC until you get this problem sorted

davb

You need to download Malwarebytes, install, update, run a full scan, fix what it finds, and post the log here.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_malwarebytes_anti_malware

Make sure you update it before scanning, and as already mentioned don't use anything sensitive. Disconnect from the net once malwarebytes has updated.


How long were they on your PC.

HappyMJ

I would disconnect it from the internet. Back everything up and rebuild. I have allowed them to connect to a virtual machine of mine and they just insist you have viruses which being a brand new machine doesn't have any and they don't do much else. They just want money.

John_Gray

Have you thought of doing a System Restore to a restore point before you allowed access?

Darksun

It might be considered overkill by some, but to be on the safe side I'd back up any important data, format the drive and reinstall your OS.

aliEnRIK

Darksun wrote: »

It might be considered overkill by some, but to be on the safe side I'd back up any important data, format the drive and reinstall your OS.

I agree. Its not worth risking everything for the sake of a format

Toxteth_OGrady

Get to a different computer as soon as you can and change all your online finance passwords.

:cool:

TOG

esuhl

Darksun wrote: »

It might be considered overkill by some, but to be on the safe side I'd back up any important data, format the drive and reinstall your OS.

If I'd allowed a scam artist to access to my PC, I would definitely format the hard drive and re-install the OS. It might seem a pain, but it's the quickest, easiest and surest way to ensure your PC is clean again.

drsquarah

Darksun wrote: »

It might be considered overkill by some, but to be on the safe side I'd back up any important data, format the drive and reinstall your OS.

Thank you all for your help. I do have an external hard drive. How do I do what you've suggested above? As you'll have guessed I'm the opposite of techie!

esuhl

Essentially, once you've confirmed that your backups are up-to-date, you need to boot from an OS installation CD or using a recovery partition.

Before you reinstall, it can be useful to note down the hardware you have (e.g. the model of motherboard, video card, network card, etc.) and download all the relevant drivers (from the manufacturers' websites) so you have them ready. If you later need to install a driver for your network adapter... you'll be in a Catch-22 if you need to download it in order to get network access!

To boot from CD, you might need to hold down a key (DEL, F1, F2, or something) when the PC starts to enter the BIOS setup program and change the boot order so that the computer will try to boot from CD first. Alternatively, you might see an option to access a boot menu that allows you to select which device to boot without needing to access the BIOS.

If you bought the PC with an operating system pre-installed, you might have a recovery partition instead. Again, when you turn on the PC you should see a message indicating that you need to press a certain key to reinstall the OS.

Once you have started the re-installation process, you should be guided through. Unless you have a specific reason to, it's probably a good idea to format your drives using the NTFS file system (as it's more sophisticated than FAT).

Hope this helps a bit...