North Carolina man pleaded guilty in 'Tech Support' Scam of over $3 million

A man from city of Charlotte, North Carolina, pleaded guilty in the federal court on Wednesday (i.e. on March 20, 2019) for doing conspiracy to access the protected computers in "tech support" scam. The "tech support" scam has targeted hundreds of victims, including many elderly, and then defrauded them by over $3 million, as per the DoJ (Department of Justice).

Bishap Mittal, 24 years-old, made his appeal before David S. Cayer, the U.S. Magistrate Judge, on March 20, 2019, and has been released on bond.

Mittal from Charlotte, North Carolina, worked with an unspecified individual - the co-conspirator in this case. This unnamed individual owns a firm named Capstone Technologies, which seems to be set up with this scam in mind. Also, the company operated under aliases, like MS-Squad.com, MS-Squad Technologies, United Technologies, MS Infotech, Authenza Solutions LLC, and Reventus Technologies.

As per Department of Justice, Mittal took part in the conspiracy that caused fake pop-up ads to appear on victims' computers (i.e. machines) using the malicious pop-up adware. These fake pop-up ads warn the victims that they had a major computer problem, and so in order to resolve this they must immediately call on a number of Capstone Technologies.

When called, the number got routed to an Indian call center. This Indian call center was operated by Bishap Mittal along with his partner, and was set up specifically for handling the tech support scams. When on phone, the victim will be convinced to download a RAT (Remote Access Tool).

"Once in control of the computers, the scammers identified various fictitious causes for the victims' purported computer malfunction, including the presence of malware or computer viruses, and induced victims to pay for virus clean-up or other tech support services," the notice of the DoJ explained. "The co-conspirators then charged victims between $200 and $2400 to make computers operable again".

The number of victims due to tech support scam has actually fallen a little bit in the recent years, as per Microsoft. Last year, a report from Microsoft shows that 63% of the consumers experienced tech support scam globally, which has fallen from 68% in the year 2016; whereas the consumers who lost money decrease from 6% to 3%.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/12/2019