Greek police have warned citizens against allowing alleged ‘experts’ contacting them over the phone who request they install remote access software under the pretext of providing technical support to a computer without prior request.

As police said the unknown hackers pretend to be technicians in support centres of a large software company and provide assistance to citizens to solve allegedly technical problems on their computers or to check the authenticity of programs installed on their PCs so that they can continue to use them.

In this context, the scammers ask unsuspecting citizens to install remote access software on their computer, thus gaining control over their computer and all the data stored on it, such as:

– e-banking accounts,
– social media accounts,
– photos and videos,
– browsing history,
– passwords for applications, websites, games, etc.,

The Greek Police advises citizens to be extremely careful, not to respond to these calls and not to disclose personal data and information to various experts.

Furthermore, in case they have disclosed personal data, police recommend:

– the immediate removal of the applications that the cybercriminals requested to install,
– the factory reset to any accessed devices (after backing up),
– performing a full security scan to detect infected or malicious programs, using up-to-date security software,
– change passwords and use strong passwords, combining characters and complexity (uppercase – lowercase – symbols – numbers), and,
– direct contact with the competent – where appropriate – banking institution in case of transactions – transfers of funds that you do not recognize.

In addition, it is proposed that citizens:

– to report the incident of technical support fraud to the company, whose technicians were posing to be technicians,
– to report the incident to the Police.