By Emily Long
It’s reasonable to assume that if you reach out to tech support from a legitimate help website, you’ll be speaking with a real customer service representative. However, scammers are hijacking pages belonging to companies like Netflix, PayPal, and Apple with the goal of stealing your information or gaining remote access to your device.
Malwarebytes Labs has identified a tech support scam that uses malicious URLs to embed fake phone numbers within legitimate site searches. Here’s how to identify and avoid falling victim to this attack.
How scammers are hijacking customer support pages
This scam begins, as many do, with a sponsored ad on Google. If you search for a company’s tech support phone number, you may see several (fake) results near the top of the page. Often, clicking these links will take you to a fake phishing website that you can identify by checking the URL, but in some cases, you’ll actually land on the legitimate support page with little cause for suspicion.
However, the number displayed may be fraudulent, and if you call, you’ll reach scammers rather than tech support. This type of attack allows cybercriminals to embed phone numbers within an authentic site, where they are prominently displayed. Once on the phone, scammers will request login credentials, financial account information, or even remote access to your device.
Because the URL is legitimate and the page layout authentic, you may not think twice about calling the number. Malwarebytes has found this attack on sites that include Netflix, PayPal, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Bank of America, and HP.
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This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.
