Many people have been contacting me about phone calls which they have been receiving. The person (usually Asian) claims to be working for Microsoft or a company who supports their products. The caller usually tells you that you have an infected computer with malware or a virus which is affecting your computer or possibly emailing people on your behalf and they claim they can fix the problems with your machine by simply walking you through some steps.

DO NOT proceed with this call, hang up immediately as this is a hoax call. Microsoft NEVER collect or share phone numbers with other companies and will not call you unless you have contacted them.

The caller, will ask you to log into a website of theirs (which is actually some web-based remote control software) and they will talk you through checking things on your machine such as your Event Viewer for example.

If the person asks you to open a web browser and go to www.logmein123.com and enter a code such as 326154, they are about to try and take over your machine.

At the end of the day, if ANYONE contacts you on the phone or by any other means and you have not contacted them, treat their claims as very suspicious.

The information I could find about these callers is listed below but this information will change so just use good judgement and put the phone down. Challenge them with questions only a real technician would know such as "What's my IP address" or "Tell me what my computer name was again" I can almost guarantee that they will hang up.

Ensure you have good antivirus such as Norton and that you have all of your updates installed and you should be OK.

Company Names: Global Computer Systems / GCS

Staff Names: Chris Wilson

Addresses: 146 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 SF7 / 32 Wisden Crescent, Manchester, M19 1DP

Phone numbers: 01865 521167 / 0161 9479909

Web addresses used: www.logmein123.com - code 326154

Keywords they use when speaking to you: Event Viewer, DOS Prompt, Logmein, Malware, Spyware, Virus