With many of our employees currently working from home, we wanted to make you aware of a cyber-hacking telephone scam which is circulating widely at the moment.
The scam is carried out as follows: The hacker calls your telephone, landline or mobile and poses as an employee from a communication company such as Virgin Media. The hacker engages you by saying things like "there is a problem with your bill/invoice" or "we can see from our monitoring systems there is a dip in your internet speeds" or they ask you questions about your expected broadband connection speed and suggesting what you are getting is slow. They may ask you about your internet router, what lights are on etc. and suggest it is showing a fault. They offer to sort that for you now if you go to your computer, open an internet browser, for example, Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome etc., and type in a website URL and either provide them with information or accept a connection from them that they will send you. This then lets them fix the issue. Of course they are not planning on fixing anything, this is how they take over your computer and collect information from it for themselves.
These hackers are very clever at what they do, they suggest they are doing you a favour, or you may be financially impacted should you not let them fix the issue for you. They induce stress and fear in the victim to increase the likelihood of a connection.
Cyber-attacks and scams evolve regularly and become more sophisticated so NEVER BE AFRAID TO SAY NO AND SEEK ADVICE FROM ICT. Ensure you report any instance of hacking or unapproved access to ICT ASAP, so ICT can inform our defence systems and colleagues with what to look out for. We all have a part to play in this line of defence.
Please remember, ICT have the facility to remotely control your PC to provide ICT Support. IT IS ONLY ICT COLLEAGUES WHO ARE PERMITTED TO REMOTELY ACCESS EDC DEVICES and they will always introduce themselves and have a reason to contact your computer such as responding to a support call raised by you.
ICT contact information:
0141 578 8888
it.serviceline@eastdunbarton.gov.uk
Thank you
Ann Davie
Depute Chief Executive – Education, People & Business
Friday 5 February 2021