Cousin got scammed by remote . How do we fix it ?

Joined
Jul 14, 2020
Messages
831
i know we have some pretty smart computer guys here and would like to ask for some advice. My cousin runs a small biz and got duped by a scammer. he got an email that seemed reputable . he thought it was from a large accounting software company that starts with an I that he uses to do payroll. the email said they were migrating to a new version and to update info via the link

he tried to log in and could not so called the number listed . went to some place in India. he allowed them to remote into his computer and you can guess what happened afterwards. he went home and started get notified bank info was being changed etc . i am not too far from his office so i went there and unplugged the computer . when i went in there was just the blue windows update screen .

Now what do we do? How do we remove the remote software ? should we wipe the computer, or toss it in the garbage? thanks for any help
 
Top priority:
1. Disconnect the internet for the office/business. Because this machine is pwn’d, the adversary could have compromised other machines and devices (including routers) nearby using this machine as a foothold into the network.

2. Change any banking, cloud backup, or sensitive account passwords that were used on this machine. Pay close attention to any that were saved on any web browsers. Do not use a machine that was connected to this machine to change these passwords (except for up-to-date iOS device such as an iPhone or iPad that was released in the past five years, released NOT bought!). I’ve seen these types of actors jump from one foothold, to a user’s Android or outdated iPad in the matter of minutes with zero user interaction so assume the worst but hope for the best.

3. Weight your options: hiring in professional mitigation ($$$) or DIY it.

4. If DIYing it, I’m guessing you are dealing with a cryptolocker so get your offline backups ready and I’m assuming a flat network architecture so at a minimum restart all networking devices (kicks out non-persistent stage 1 type malware) or replace the networking devices if it has been more than two-three years since these devices were released.

5. If you do not have another machine available: boot the machine into command line safe mode and check to see if the file system is intact. If it is, I’d personally yank the drive and grab a new SSD and rebuild on there. You can selectively recover data off of the old drive later.

Preferable step 5. Yank the drive, boot the machine or another machine into Linux (just go create a Kali bootable thumb drive) and create an .E01 of the compromised drive using Autopsy and carve it to see if you can recover data from it.

Strongly consider encouraging him to Macs and iPads for accounting. They are inherently more secure and are getting more secure as time goes on despite a larger number of criminals targeting them. If they do chose to go the Mac route, get a M1 powered device. My fathers medical practice kept getting their Windows machines pwn’d about once or twice a year for a decade because of some dumb secretaries; I switched them over to Macs and iPads for everything and we had zero compromises or loss of business over a five year period until his retirement.
 
i know we have some pretty smart computer guys here and would like to ask for some advice. My cousin runs a small biz and got duped by a scammer. he got an email that seemed reputable . he thought it was from a large accounting software company that starts with an I that he uses to do payroll. the email said they were migrating to a new version and to update info via the link

he tried to log in and could not so called the number listed . went to some place in India. he allowed them to remote into his computer and you can guess what happened afterwards. he went home and started get notified bank info was being changed etc . i am not too far from his office so i went there and unplugged the computer . when i went in there was just the blue windows update screen .

Now what do we do? How do we remove the remote software ? should we wipe the computer, or toss it in the garbage? thanks for any help
Keep the removed hard drive as it is evidence of a crime. This is not a DIY situation as this is a business computer. He can assess if worth getting a new hard drive installed with new OS or put in the closet.

Hopefully it sorts out okay.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JC1
Yes, first and foremost disconnect the computer from internet and shut it down.

These guys are not as elaborate as many think. They are not even hacking, just exploiting remote access software and peoples lack of understanding how it works. They are after the contents of the computer and what’s on it. They usually stop there and don’t compromise anything else as they lack the knowledge and are just working from a how to document.

The next question is what’s on the computer and what other information was given to them? Start calling banks, credit card companies etc. and blocking all purchases.
 
His computer is irrelevant at this point. They have his account info, login details, etc and can do everything they need from their machines now. Main thing to resolve at this point is his banking details and them having access to it now. After that's sorted, wipe the computer 100% and start over. Restoring his Quickbooks account and data will be the next tricky part.
 
As others stated the hacked computer is the least of the problems now. Turn off the computer and deal with anything that involves money, finances, etc. The computer can be dealt with at a later date.
 
Top priority:
1. Disconnect the internet for the office/business. Because this machine is pwn’d, the adversary could have compromised other machines and devices (including routers) nearby using this machine as a foothold into the network.

2. Change any banking, cloud backup, or sensitive account passwords that were used on this machine. Pay close attention to any that were saved on any web browsers. Do not use a machine that was connected to this machine to change these passwords (except for up-to-date iOS device such as an iPhone or iPad that was released in the past five years, released NOT bought!). I’ve seen these types of actors jump from one foothold, to a user’s Android or outdated iPad in the matter of minutes with zero user interaction so assume the worst but hope for the best.

3. Weight your options: hiring in professional mitigation ($$$) or DIY it.

4. If DIYing it, I’m guessing you are dealing with a cryptolocker so get your offline backups ready and I’m assuming a flat network architecture so at a minimum restart all networking devices (kicks out non-persistent stage 1 type malware) or replace the networking devices if it has been more than two-three years since these devices were released.

This covers it pretty well. For #4, I wouldn't immediately assume you are dealing with ransomware, it sounds more like just a remote access user exploit, but this can be readily confirmed by pulling the drive and connecting it to another system or booting the current computer from a Linux live DVD/USB. You'll be able to see if the files on the drive are still accessible. If they are, then I'd just buy a new SSD and do a fresh install of Windows on it, then copy back the pertinent files from the old drive.

Which brings us to these points, which are also quite good:
Yes, first and foremost disconnect the computer from internet and shut it down.

These guys are not as elaborate as many think. They are not even hacking, just exploiting remote access software and peoples lack of understanding how it works. They are after the contents of the computer and what’s on it. They usually stop there and don’t compromise anything else as they lack the knowledge and are just working from a how to document.

The next question is what’s on the computer and what other information was given to them? Start calling banks, credit card companies etc. and blocking all purchases.

Which brings us back to #2 from the above list, get all that sorted first. Get the money and account situation secured, that's the most important. I'd operate under the premise that the router could have been compromised depending on what it is. If it's a cheap consumer grade one at minimum I'd factory reset it and set it up fresh with a new password in case they were able to gain access and setup some port forwards.

As @IveBeenRued noted, if the browser was setup to save passwords for any sites, I'd change all of them.

Whether you need to start looking at restoring from backup will depend on your investigative efforts with respect to the contents of the old drive.

It's definitely far better to assume the worst and get pleasantly surprised than not doing your due diligence and making the situation worse. Assume anything that could be accessed from the compromised workstation (like the router) has been and for the love of God, don't turn that computer back on and let it boot, as if in the event that it IS ransomware and you've managed to stop it before it got too far, you will make it decidedly worse. You'll know more on that front once you are looking at the drive from outside its environment.

As KrisZ said, it's very often that these attacks aren't overly complicated. The actors use a standard piece of remote access software (LogMeIn, TeamViewer...etc) while pretending to be a vendor (Microsoft is the most common) and then extracting money from you either directly, by stealing your information (because folks of course have their browser save login info or they can get all the information necessary to access accounts and the like from the accounting software screens) or telling you that you have a "problem" that will require payment to rectify.
 
I would never allow anyone remote access to my personal computer. Even my bank. If things need to be changed for me to interface to a vendor, tell me what the changes are and I will make them. I will send you a screen shot after I have made changes.

At work I would allow the L2/L3 support people to remote access if I was working on a problem with them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JC1
Update: Met my cousin at his office this morning at 6 am. We checked out his network to see if it was ok. the rest of the computers seem to be ok. he has a comcast buisness gateway and we check if any ports had been opened there were non.

it seems that the scammers tried to open his bank accounts and change the passwords and send money via Zelle. i think we cut them off in time for them to succeed. He is going to wipe the computer with the remote control software on it. i told him to keep looking at his bank account for suspicious behavior .

so the email he got was addressed @e.g.intuit.com. i am suprised they could use intuit in the address
 
As much as this stuff has been mentioned everywhere, it amazes me how many people still fall for this. I get phone calls all the time with someone wanting to "fix" my computer or it will turn to mush. It truly is shame we have to be on a constant watch for scammers.
 
Update: Met my cousin at his office this morning at 6 am. We checked out his network to see if it was ok. the rest of the computers seem to be ok. he has a comcast buisness gateway and we check if any ports had been opened there were non.

it seems that the scammers tried to open his bank accounts and change the passwords and send money via Zelle. i think we cut them off in time for them to succeed. He is going to wipe the computer with the remote control software on it. i told him to keep looking at his bank account for suspicious behavior .

so the email he got was addressed @e.g.intuit.com. i am suprised they could use intuit in the address
It's extremely easy to spoof an email address. It's also very likely that someone who works for Intuit got their account compromised and that's how they sent the email from an intuit address. Or it's possible that the name on the email account was "[email protected]" while the actual email address was [email protected]
 
Update: Met my cousin at his office this morning at 6 am. We checked out his network to see if it was ok. the rest of the computers seem to be ok. he has a comcast buisness gateway and we check if any ports had been opened there were non.

it seems that the scammers tried to open his bank accounts and change the passwords and send money via Zelle. i think we cut them off in time for them to succeed. He is going to wipe the computer with the remote control software on it. i told him to keep looking at his bank account for suspicious behavior .

so the email he got was addressed @e.g.intuit.com. i am suprised they could use intuit in the address
You need to look at the headers of the email. If in gmail, just do a show original, that gets you more info about the sender.
 
As much as this stuff has been mentioned everywhere, it amazes me how many people still fall for this. I get phone calls all the time with someone wanting to "fix" my computer or it will turn to mush. It truly is shame we have to be on a constant watch for scammers.
My solution for that is never answer my phone unless the incoming number is in my contacts list. They can't try and scam if nobody answers.
 
That won't work well for a business that gets phone calls from new customers. Catch-22. Hard for you to get business and sell if you don't answer the phone.
Then just hang up. Don't know why scammers would be calling business unless they're just doing random calling. Scammers like to prey on elderly people because they typically fall for their scams easier.
 
Then just hang up. Don't know why scammers would be calling business unless they're just doing random calling. Scammers like to prey on elderly people because they typically fall for their scams easier.
I mentioned the customer aspect because the OP was about a small business. If it's just an individual on a personal computer, I agree with not answering calls from numbers you don't recognize. I do this myself on my cell phone.
 
Back
Top