The occurance of email and phone scams here in Trinidad and Tobago has been on the rise recently. One in particular calaims to be a free Windows 10 upgrade.
This comes in the form of an email with an attachment that claims to be the Windows 10 upgrade, or in the form of a phone call (usually from a person with an Indian accent) indicating that you have ‘qualified’ for a Windows 10 upgrade and that they are willing to guide you through the upgrade process.
If you receive any such email of phone call please ignore immediately and delete the email and politely hang up the phone.
These are actually cybercriminals attempting to install ransomeware and other types of viruses and malware on your computer. If you do initiate this conversation or click on the install, a ransomware virus will be installed on your computer. This will encrypt most of your files and also put a password lock to access your computer when next it’s restarted. Your only way out of that is to pay the ransome via the instructions provided by the cybercriminal. You can find out more about RansomeWare from this article.
You should note that Windows 10 is now a FREE upgrade offered by Microsoft which you do not need to be pre-qualified for. Microsoft has also stated that they do not initiate calls to customers to assist with any software update or technical support, nor do they send emails with installation files attached.
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