Let Sleeping Services Be

AKA, latest scam attempted on me, with most of the caller's fumbles of his script left out.

A call claiming to be my ISP (never used it for home internet, but the phone number had been with them at one point, so others may have a match claiming your ISP based on who your phone has been with), that they had a failure on their server and that there 70% services stopped, and we need to fix them. 

Caller: How many devices do you have using the internet?  

Me: (quickly count the list) I have 15 IPs active today as seen on WhoIsConnectedSniffer (software I have running on my computer most of the time), but some of them should never get to the internet.   

Caller:  Then I need you to get in front of your computer.

Me:  OK, since that is where you caught me, where did you think I had WhoIsConnectedSniffer running?  yes I am there.

Caller: confused sounding

(a bit of back and forth with this drone in a call centre, to get him back on track of the scam to see where it is going)

Caller:  Do you see the Windows key?  Hold it down and press R

Me:  Ah, you want the Run prompt, OK, I am there.

Caller:  type in msconfig   and then press the OK button

Me: (I know this first bit is safe, so I proceed) Oh, it looks a bit different since I last looked this way, I see the Tabs: General, Boot, Services, ...

Caller:  OK, need you to click on Services, now see how many are stopped. 

Me:  Yes, I see many of  them stopped and that is the normal amount I expect there.

Caller: Then we need to remote into your computer to fix these stopped services as part of the service you paid for.

Me: But those services aren't needed, in fact some of them really shouldn't be running most of the time, rather like one doesn't leave their car running in the garage when they aren't driving it.

Caller:  But you paid for this service, so we need to restart them for you.

Note: This goes on back and forth for nearly 5 minutes until a meeting reminder gets me to wrapping up.  I could have so dragged him along for ages if I had the free time.

Me:  I have several ways to prove you are a scammer. 

• I'm not with the ISP you claim to be, though I have worked with them.
• It is normal for Windows to have stopped services as many are use only occasionally and the system knows how to trigger them on when needed, or are only on when the applicable hardware is turned on, example: the Bluetooth support service is stopped because I don't currently have Bluetooth turned on. 
• Clearly, as someone who mainly works on Linux servers, I still know way more about Windows than you do. 

Caller:    Ahh..ahh....ahhh..........

The line goes dead.  He was clearly very new at this, or was just following the script in front of him. 

Summary:

If you ask a question and they immediately re-ask their question, it is almost certainly a scam. 

Stopped Services on your computer is a normal thing, just like your microwave or shower are not running much of the time.  A server failure at your ISP is not going to impact the services on your computer, as, if necessary, a reboot of your system is all you should need.  Never let one of those callers remote into your system, as that is a disaster waiting to happen.  What exactly they will do varies, bit it won't be in your interest. 

Security Awareness Training Issues

Issues we've seen of some Security Awareness Training that limit its effectiveness, and ideas on how to improve them.

Does your solution suffer from these issues?

Training notifications resemble spam in a few ways (sense of urgency, a link) in addition to being overly annoying, and that is likely why we have seen them blocked, labelled Junk/spam, and otherwise ignored.  
   

* The notifications don't give the assignee an idea of how long the training will take.  For busy staff, especially those who have to track every hour (or less, as is the case for many professional service people) as billable,  this makes it very hard to schedule in to their plans.  Therefore, making it more likely for them to defer until they have a larger block of time and ability to listen to content to make sure they can complete in one go.   
      To Fix:  List the estimated time to complete, can it be paused or must it be completed in one go,  if Video, with or without Audio, just a slide-deck, or something else.
   

* Training is presented very piecemeal. Each element/training has its own mail stream, such that a busy person, in crunch time, can build up several queued training assignments and end-up with multiple nagging messages a day.  Junk mail handling is the easiest way to get them out of the way, cluttering up the key production communication tool of email.
      To Fix:  Consolidate those nag messages in some fashion.  A default should be One a day, with options both administratively and end user to set preferred time and timings to better reflect the local conditions of The Work (the reason the business exists, the training is a secondary support function that won't be allowed to wag the dog).

 

* Training alerts are currently oblivious to work schedules, even the most standard one of Monday to Friday.  The alert nag is based on X calendar days, not even X business days, so that trainees are getting alerts on off business hours. 

 

* If an assignee has been able to disconnect from email (weekends, vacations, collapse from overdoing a crunch, etc..), then they get a flood of those nags mixed in with all the other built up demands on their time leading to the nags being added to the rest of junk mail handling.

 

* If an assignee is trying to use a weekend to get The Work done during a normally quiet time, it's an interruption during a normally quiet time, again off to junk mail handling or similar in favour of The Work.

 * If an assignee is only paying attention to email on a weekend for emergencies (because normally a quiet time, vendors who send their marketing on weekends get down voted!)  Then any training alerts will only add up to frustration at the training and be invited to junk mail handling process.
      To Fix:  Default to X Business Days, not X Calendar Days for the training reminders, with those as clearly separate options.  And the Business Days needs to reflect the local Statutory and common Holidays, configurable would be nice to add business specific days that are reserved for things other than such secondary functions.   Bonus would be for a way to include(sync?) people vacation schedules to pause the training timers over peoples' scheduled time off.  Perhaps this could be the way to include Business and/or regional specific off days.
      
Related to the off hours notifications the system currently does, is that these notifications do trip up against a new legislative trend to protect employees personal time (that whole work/life balance thing).  Ontario is the first of the pack to have such legislation and off hours notifications put organizations based here in a rough spot, and we may well be forced to find other training providers that respect the Right to Disconnect.  
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/written-policy-disconnecting-from-work