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[Help] Help! Aggravation from clicking on pop-ups on football stream Keep Sport Honest



herecomesaregular

We're in the pipe, 5 by 5
Oct 27, 2008
4,175
Still in Brighton
So... yes, it must be said, I do use some Streaming websites to watch the Albion away. Do get popups and always close them carefully, never had an issue.

So... I did tell my dad about Keep Sport Honest and (I thought) it's pitfalls, forgetting he's 80 now and while still very active and aware, he's not what he was.

So...when he started to watch Spurs v Albion the computer pop ups went mad, a loud "alarm" went off on it etc saying he had a virus/ his laptop would lockup shortly, (you know the drill). This freaked him out, he ignored all I told him and clicked and opened the popups, eventually ringing a number they prompted him to. This then led to this person (Henry, from Microsoft) getting remote access to his laptop for 30 minutes or so, running kproxy.com and other
programs I think.

Thankfully,

- he DIDN'T give any bank or credit card details to them when asked to pay for the "virus's on the laptop".

- this laptop was ONLY used for web browsing and the hard drive had nothing much saved on it for them to view, no word docs, no sensitive information, just a few odd photos.

- after ending the 30-40 min call he DIDN'T then do any browsing or mobile banking, turned it off and hasn't yet turned it back on. So hopefully nothing for them to spy on?

- an hour later he felt funny about it (he never called me until this morning) and rang his banks to suspend his mobile banking and block his cards for any use other than ATM. Still currently in place. When reinstated obvs all passwords will be changed. Money in the accounts all ok.

- today, I've established it was a London phone number 02034752736 he rang and this shows on his phone bill as FREE (part of the phone package). I was really expecting this to be a premier rate number and him to have been charged a large amount.

- we've changed passwords on his two main email accounts in case they were compromised (no signs they were but worried if so they could use the main email to reset website logins)


I think the laptop is compromised now, even if we run malwarebytes, run the Macafee on it and do a clean reinstall I'm not sure I would trust it? I'm not sure what this person was doing remotely for 30 minutes. Maybe take out the harddrive and put in a new one? (laptop is a dell, cost £450 and only 2 years old).

Was also thinking re possible ID theft about upgrading his Noddle account, just to keep an eye on things.

Any further advice please? (because I feel pretty rotten. Lesson has been learnt). He feels a fool so I have had to tread carefully with him.

Many thanks to the great and good of NSC ;- )
 


He's very lucky to get away with enduring 30 minutes' remote access! Hard drives can be overwritten ( I think all the ones are changed to zeroes). What sort is it? SSDs have come down in price considerably and some have even broken through the 10 pence per gigabyte barrier - a price nobody would have believed a decade ago. They are superior to HDD, especially for somebody who might be a bit clumsy and drop a laptop whilst it's running.
https://www.7dayshop.com/ssd-hard-drives
 
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father_and_son

Well-known member
Jan 23, 2012
4,646
Under the Police Box
All sensible advice but... Honestly. NowTV bundle or SkySports subscription is probably cheaper when you figure in the time and expense and sheer inconvenience you have both now been through.

There are so many reasons not to subscribe to Sky/BT and pay for them to ruin the match day experience but here is a rock solid reason to bite the bullet and subscribe.

With a decent Sky package you can have SkyGo where "you" can watch stuff on a laptop while away from "your" home. Easy enough to split the costs of football across 3 generations (so I'm told).
 


SollysLeftFoot

New member
Mar 17, 2019
1,037
Bitchin' in Hitchin
First and foremost: update anything that needs an update. The biggest cause of security breaches are out of date software which hackers exploit.

I would also be tempted to reformat the hard drive and wipe it clean.
 




herecomesaregular

We're in the pipe, 5 by 5
Oct 27, 2008
4,175
Still in Brighton
Thanks for the comments. Installing Linux is probably the best solution, it's just when I've tried it before on older laptops the install/update wasn't as easy as expected.
 


Shuggie

Well-known member
Sep 19, 2003
666
East Sussex coast
He's very lucky to get away with enduring 30 minutes' remote access! Hard drives can be overwritten ( I think all the ones are changed to zeroes). What sort is it? SSDs have come down in price considerably and some have even broken through the 10 pence per gigabyte barrier - a price nobody would have believed a decade ago. They are superior to HDD, especially for somebody who might be a bit clumsy and drop a laptop whilst it's running.
https://www.7dayshop.com/ssd-hard-drives

In another life, I used to pull IDE and SCSI drives out of IBM machines and ... well, never mind what I did with them or where I got them from ... the rule of thumb was £1 per Mb :ohmy:
 


Nigella's Cream Pie

Fingerlickin good
Apr 2, 2009
1,050
Up your alley
All sensible advice but... Honestly. NowTV bundle or SkySports subscription is probably cheaper when you figure in the time and expense and sheer inconvenience you have both now been through.

There are so many reasons not to subscribe to Sky/BT and pay for them to ruin the match day experience but here is a rock solid reason to bite the bullet and subscribe.

With a decent Sky package you can have SkyGo where "you" can watch stuff on a laptop while away from "your" home. Easy enough to split the costs of football across 3 generations (so I'm told).

The Spurs match was one of very few of our away matches on Sky this season so if only interested in seeing us live then that would be a huge price to pay.
 




father_and_son

Well-known member
Jan 23, 2012
4,646
Under the Police Box
The Spurs match was one of very few of our away matches on Sky this season so if only interested in seeing us live then that would be a huge price to pay.

NowTV 1 day Sky Sports pass is far far cheaper than a new hard drive, having your identity stolen or your bank accounts emptied.

Just saying if you aren't technically savvy enough to stream, then there are legal solutions.
 


Blue Valkyrie

Not seen such Bravery!
Sep 1, 2012
32,165
Valhalla
NowTV 1 day Sky Sports pass is far far cheaper than a new hard drive, having your identity stolen or your bank accounts emptied.

Just saying if you aren't technically savvy enough to stream, then there are legal solutions.
At £5.99 a month the mobile-only sports pass is great.

Sit in the dark, with the mobile on a full screen landscape view held 4 inches from the face and it is like being in the cinema !
 



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