Caution! New telephone fraud - Alleged to be Microsoft employees (Police Announcement)

The Police is paying special attention to the public, regarding a new form of fraud through malicious telephone calls, which aim at accessing citizens' computers and their personal and banking data.

Lately, the Cybercrime Sub-Directorate has been receiving several new complaints telephone fraud, where savvy, cybercriminals claim to be Microsoft operatives from abroad and guide users in actions that may lead to the interception of data or banking data. The action of the suspects is as follows:

• They make phone calls to subscribers in Cyprus and are presented as engineers of the Microsoft Support Center. They offer to help solve computer problems for removing supposedly malicious software (virus) or even to install special software for alleged data protection.
• To this end, (a) they request Remote Access to the computer so that they own the computer with all possible consequences, such as access to electronic data, bank accounts, passwords and other data; or (b) request bank card numbers or other data ostensibly for verification.

The public is called upon to be very careful, not to answer these calls and the citizens not to give their details to various experts.