Your screen went black and then you were offered an antivirus? You are under attack!

In France, police are concerned about black screen cyber scams. By infecting the computers of European users with a virus and then extorting money from them, scammers earned millions of euros. Find out about their method so as not to fall for the bait of criminals.

Extortion under the pretext of selling computer antiviruses is a common occurrence on the Internet. Scammers send out email messages demanding that you renew your subscription to an anti-virus product that you allegedly ordered. Having received such a message, some users may become confused, thinking that they accidentally subscribed and... pay the scammers. Therefore, it is very important to check from which email addresses the message you receive was sent: it is usually not difficult to detect that the email addresses of the criminals have nothing to do with the domain names of the antivirus manufacturers for which they demand your money.

Now a new threat created by an entire network of cybercriminals has begun to spread. Black screen scam.

Imagine: you are browsing the Internet on your computer at home or at work, and suddenly your screen goes black and only a short message appears, prompting you to contact a repair service at a certain number. The victim calls the number and is answered by a person who offers free help. Pretending to help, the interlocutor offers help. The screen turns back on and the scammer asks the victim to buy the antivirus for the amount of 300 euros, which can be paid by credit card. The most terrible and cynical thing is that the same antiviruses can be found and downloaded absolutely free on the Internet.

According to the Parisian prosecutor's office for cybercrime, in this way millions of euros were fraudulently obtained not only in France, but also from other European countries, and transferred to the bank account of a company based in the French city of Perpignan. This company was an empty shell with a fake manager, through which these funds were subsequently transferred, presumably to accounts in Israel. An investigation by French law enforcement revealed that the criminal network was led by several leaders who hired computer experts and other hackers. In total, up to three hundred people worked in the fake "call center".

How to protect yourself from black screen scams? "Every hour, thousands of messages of this type come from rooms filled with scammers all over Europe. And this works one time out of ten," explains one of the representatives of the prosecutor's office and gives advice to all users in case the same case of computer infection happens to them. If a suspicious message appears, under no circumstances call the numbers offered and contact an authorized computer repair service or your IT specialist.