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Father in law seems to have been scammed by bent forex traders on line. Started off with dodgy email now in the hole for £5k. We are trying to close everything down atm. He has been using his laptop for all this and installed software on it to trade.
I am concerned that it may now be extremely compromised. My thoughts were completely delete all emails regarding the scam etc on the laptop so they don’t pop back up later and then just destroy it. But him a new laptop. Change all banking and important passwords on a different computer. Seems a bit drastic but FiL is at other end of the country and if he tries to run anti malware software he will balls it up. Anything else worth doing?
Nah, do that. Once the malware is in... unless you are utterly brilliant... it's in.
Ditch the lot (don't know how old the Lappy is) and buy another form PCWorld..
Reset all PW's, if necessary change email addresses too (no doubt most contact have a mail address so easy to let them know you've had to change to a new mail address)
Report the fraud to the Police, the more info they have the better and also adds to the evidence they may already have on the scam.
Other than that I'd be taking the Lappy to someone professional to wipe it all, then re-install the software etc.. (if you want to keep the happy BTW)
Scammers are scum.
My local computer shop would install an SDD hard drive and W10 for about 100e
Does sound a bit extreme. Depends on the laptop really. If it's due an upgrade then a new one might be the easy option. If it is still functional apart from the malware then I'd look to fix it. A new SSD would be a good upgrade and get rid of all the software. Should be able to re-install windows pretty easily.
Ideally you would be getting back to a completely fresh install of the OS and start again.
Get another SSD and a SATA/USB cable and make a clone of the laptop drive before adding any other software - this would allow you to quickly get back to a known state in the future if required.
Try to persuade him to move almost everything to cloud services so no software installations required.
Edit: .... and move him onto gmail if he isn't already.
Why people still keep everything on their PC/laptop is beyond me
Edit 2: Are you sure it's a scam and he hasn't just made some bad moves and doesn't want to admit it?
There is no reason whatsoever to buy a new laptop. As others have said, either reinstall W10 or get an SSD fitted. The latter will be a decent upgrade (assuming it doesn't already have one) and you can get a USB caddy for the old drive.
Cheers will investigate the suggestions, I don’t think it’s a particularly new laptop and that combined with him living in the country hundreds of miles from us and not being in anyway a techie makes binning it a more tempting solution!
Pretty sure it’s a scam, he reached the forex company by following a dodgy email re bitcoins purporting to come from his other daughter but emanating from Slovenia. Has all the traits of them trying to rinse him dry. Just need to persuade him to knock it on the head.
Just a thought on this,
FiL is at other end of the country and if he tries to run anti malware software he will balls it up.
If you wanted to run scans for him you could do it remotely. https://www.teamviewer.com/en/
Are you sure it is malware? It sounds to me like someone might just have tricked him into doing some trades that are a bit crap. That isn't malware - it's social engineering and all the new pcs in the world won't solve it 🙁
Run an online scan using both the microsoft security scanner and the eset one. Uninstall the trading software. If you really want to protect him remove his rights to install anything new so you have to do it.
This stuff is getting tough but basic machine antivirus and antimalware is now so good that the easiest way in is to trick people 🙁
Not sure there’s malware, I suspect I’m being very over cautious. The FiL downloaded “legit” software for trading, unfortunately I don’t know what he clicked and with whom before he got to that stage (this is a man who believed one of those you have an issue with windows telephone calls!) and speaking to a colleague who spends a lot of time on the dark bits of the dark web he recommended fairly robust action but he’s not a pure techie.
As I say he clicked on at least one dodgy link contained in an email during all this. I don’t want to go through getting the trading binned off and then later have a virus clean out his banking, it’s bad enough he’s probably going to be on a suckers list from now on.
Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated
Spend your time uninstalling the trading software. Go through email to see if he has signed up to trading platforms and change the password on those. Banking passwords to change and be 2FA'd.
It is extremely unlikely that anyone has direct access to his account. His account would already have been hosed if so :).
Better to educate that give the impression that a new machine will provide protection because it really won't. The software is no longer the problem. Get him to forward any emails he is unsure about to you first. I
Microsoft Safety scanner: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/intelligence/safety-scanner-download
eSet online Scanner: https://www.eset.com/int/home/online-scanner/
There are probably some reddit forums that might provide enough of a distraction to FiL to keep him from trading online 🙂
Reinstall windows from scratch.
Change all passwords.
Talk to his banks.
Don't **** about.
Worked in IT security for a bank. Take it from me - you're a fool if you do owt less.