84 year old let in a trojan? Remote access

matty_hunt

Hi. My 84 year old dad just rung me saying he's got a possible security breach on his laptop. He's not computer literate nor too clear on whats happened but thinks it went like this: He is not sure how but a window opened showing the top 15 most beautiful women in the world. As he has tried to close the window a pop-up, supposedly from windows defender saying he had a trojan, ring the tech support to get it removed. He did ring them up. They confirmed it was a trojan spider and instructed him to hit the windows key and R. He typed, www.microtechassist.com, entered his name and a code number given by the tech guy. He was told not to use the curser. He could then see his computer was being remotely controlled. Dad doesnt know what was being changed but things were happening on screen in front of his eyes. They then tried to sell him anitvirus software at £150pa which fortunately he didnt accept. Now he cant power off his laptop. Ive told him to switch off the router, hold down the power button until screen is blank and close lid.  I dont like the idea someone was remotely altering his laptop. Should we be concerned? Many thanks

TELLIT01

Yes you are right to be concerned.  Had he subscribed to any antivirus software?  I would be inclined to take it straight to a local company to get it checked out before even powering it back on again.

GDB2222

Yes, you need to be very concerned. When this happened to a friend he reformatted the laptop and reinstalled windows from scratch. 

tripled

Yes, they could have installed some form of keylogger and/or remote viewing software that could allow them to harvest information, including banking and email passwords, personal data, sensitive files, etc., or more scareware to push him to contact scammers again. They may have disabled any existing antivirus which would leave it vulnerable to further malware. It should be cleaned up by a professional.

They likely now have his phone number and potentially other personal information. He is at high risk of that information being used to  repeatedly target him again in the future by phone, email or post. He very much needs to be on his guard.

Depending on the telephone number he rang, he might also get a nasty surprise on his phone bill if it was international or premium rate.

matty_hunt

Thank you for your replies. Other than a few photos, which I think I have backed up, I think a clean reinstall will be on the cards. We tell him all the time but he does like to chat to cold callers on the phone. I'll make sure he is vigilant. Cheers

pendragon_arther

Whatever method you use it will probably happen again.
Are you within a short distance of him for you to be ale to run some scans for him, as he'll probably forget to do it, at least once a week. 
I run scans with these at the weekends and sometimes they pick up nasties and sometimes not but they're all free versions:
AdW Cleaner
Malwarebytes

Good luck.