Google Chrome Scam

Tech support scams are an everyday thing nowadays, and a new one is on the wild which uses an exploit in the Google Chrome browser to slow down the user machine to a level it makes it almost inoperative, then the scammers will present the affected users an offer of ‘tech support’ to “fix” the problem. The exploit is a long-term bug in Google Chrome which permits a huge amount of URLs to be inserted into the browser history, swamping the victim’s PC down. The scam functions via a fake website which notifies that your ‘system has been infected’ while overloading the user computer, and then presents a phone number for the user to call, which of course is operated by the scammers who will afterwards try to defraud you in one way or another for the ‘fix’.

All you need to do to resolve the problem is shut down Google Chrome by opening Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete together) and terminating the browser process (clicking on End Task after the Google Chrome process has been selected). If the computer is completely unresponsive, you will have to hard reset the computer by holding the power button for more than 5 seconds.

This scam has been spotted in the wild, and has already been reported to Google, so an update to address this bug should be on the way. In the meantime, in case this happens to you please never call a “support” number that magically appears on your computer screen or click on anything with the following keywords “update”, “fix”, “clean”, “speed-up”, “boost”, etc. By doing so you could really infest your computer or even worse, allow someone to login remotely into your computer and do all kind of nasty things with your data. Never allow an unknown person to login remotely into your computer, instead contact us and we will gladly help you. Don’t put your data at risk, think smart.