Recently many people have started receiving telephone calls from a company that identifies itself as “Microsoft Certified.”  Unfortunately, there is no “Microsoft Certified” and the scammers using this name have nothing to do with the legitimate Microsoft company.   The victims are told that they are being contacted because Microsoft Certified has been notified by the victim’s computer that it is infected with a virus.  They then instruct the victim to open a program called Error Log that lists internal errors on Microsoft software using computers.  Inevitably some error messages will come up although generally they are harmless and of no consequence.  They then become victimized in two ways.  First they sell the victim anti-virus software that can be obtained from the real Microsoft at no cost and then they get the victims to download a file that contains keystroke logging malware that enables the scammer to steal all of the information from the victim’s computer.

TIP

You never know who is on the other end of a telephone call.  Microsoft does not call its users in regard to security matters.  If you have any concerns that there may be a legitimate problem, contact Microsoft by telephone or on line at numbers and addresses that you know are legitimate to confirmt that your previous contact was with a scammer.