Interesting Computer Scam Last Night

[Dave Schwartz]

Last night I got a telephone call from a Chinese-sounding voice telling me my machine was compromised. What got my attention was that he had the MAC address of my primary machine.

When he asked me to install TeamViewer I laughed and hung up.

But then I thought, "How did he get it?"

So, I proceeded to search on Google. "How did someone get my MAC address?"

Every article I read said that they only way to get it was from within your network. Well, that set me off.

I literally read 10 pages deep on Google (every article), before I found something that said that IPv6 sends the MAC address with every packet; anybody who wants it can harvest it from just about any web site you visit.

At that point I realized that anybody who had to get into my network to get the MAC address certainly wouldn't need me to run TeamViewer to get access because they would already have it. Duh...

Still, I was up until 2am running virus scan and 2 Malware scans.

Below is a link to the explanation of the scam if you are interested. Very creative. BTW, for the record, I KNEW it was a scam immediately. Nobody CALLS! EVER! But that "How did he get it?" thing kept me going.

http://blog.eset.com/2011/07/19/support-desk-scams-clsid-not-unique

[wilderness]

Last night I got a telephone call from a Chinese-sounding voice telling me my machine was compromised. What got my attention was that he had the MAC address of my primary machine.

Dave,
Personally, I'd be more concerned with how your MAC address was associated with "Dave" and "Dave's land line"?

FWIW, your MAC address for your computer and your MAC address for your router should be two different creatures.

IPv6 sends the MAC address with every packet;

AFAIK (and numerous other webmasters), IPv6 has YET be fully implemented across the WWW.
Upon the full implementation of IPv6 the procedures of access and/or prevention of same will require different procedures than are currently utilized.
Most everybody I communicate with is still using IPv4 procedures, and furthermore has not found a reasonable method for converting IPv4 ranges to IPv6, and vice versa.

BTW, last week I saw this scam on the local news.

[Dave Schwartz]

Personally, I'd be more concerned with how your MAC address was associated with "Dave" and "Dave's land line"?

I can only assume that I went to some website where they captured something that included my name. From there I am an easy lookup.

Not concerned about that at all.