Computer held hostage

S

Sl33py

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I have a customer that was tricked by someone to let them work remotely on her PC because she has so many errors, she did have problems and let them in. After an hour of them fiddling they gave her different options for support contracts and asked for her credit card details. She refused.

They changed her permissions she can’t open any program it just keeps telling her she does not have permission. I know a reload is the best option but are there ways I can reset default security settings and policy. It is XP home and she is still an administrator so not sure how they did it or how to fix it
 
How does she know they changed the permissions and this is not part of the original problem?

If it's a decent PC, I recommend a backup and upgrade to Win7. It is a great improvement and works in a very similar way (not much new to learn).
 
Lounger said:
How does she know they changed the permissions and this is not part of the original problem?

If it's a decent PC, I recommend a backup and upgrade to Win7. It is a great improvement and works in a very similar way (not much new to learn).
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this. Backup / format / fresh install is likely going to be the least painful, quickest route. It'll do the following: get rid of the initial "problems", secure her system, be faster, likely be cheaper, giver her an opportunity to upgrade to win7 if that's within her budget. Even if she stays on xp, I would still go that route.
 
you get a error message telling you you dont have permision when you try to open any program or control panel

Did a system restore to before they worked on the PC no change
 
They haven't perchance enabled the BIOS password ?

BTW, this might be a good time to name & shame the company involved ...
 
If she is using windows Xp etc. perhaps look into the Linux distribution that allows you to reset your admin passwords. Can't recall the name though
 
Yeah, mate, name & shame, if thy are legit they can respond with an answer and state their case, otherwise the rest of us will be forewarned....
 
Disconnect from internet (unplug ethernet, wifi, 3G); backup; reformat and reinstall Windows.
 
The best would be to start by Googling "xp admin password reset" or similar.

My search returned 1.84 million responses, so you should find a solution amongst them :)

Three responses to start with:

  1. http://lifehacker.com/137980/how-to-reset-your-windows-xp-password
  2. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/passrecovery.htm
  3. http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/reset-lost-xp-administrator-password-erd-commander/

The first two websites I know & can recommend; I think that I may have used the third, but can't guarantee it.

BTW (as always) look at the comments: they include some helpful tips ...
 
Customer has ESET Smart Security 5 they changed things in the Firewall to prevent any access to the PC. I could boot into safe mode and use the Admin account and uninstall ESET.
Working fine now, will reinstall a fresh copy of ESET and did a system restore till before they had their fingers all over the PC.
Thanks
 
Can't fault Eset Smart (5 star in Computer Shopper).

So which company did the deed, so we can avoid them?
 
Glad to hear that you were able to resolve the issue.

I agree with Lounger - it's unlikely that Eset had anything to do with it, so it must be them what had their sticky fingers in the PC's innards ...

OTOH, always remember Napoleon Bonaparte's famous epigram: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" :)
 
rrh said:
it's unlikely that Eset had anything to do with it, so it must be them what had their sticky fingers in the PC's innards ... :)
Click to expand...

Agree, they configured it to behave the way it did. I run eset on 120+ pc win very little problems
 
This is a known scam, my neighbour got called by them the week leading up to Christmas. Then in the first week of this year I was called by them too...on my landline number which most of my family don't even have let alone these guys and they know all your details. I'd love to know which database was bought or where the details were leaked from.

Anywho, the companies name was E.T. Protections. A quick Google shows many results about these guys scam. I can't remember the guys name but he identified himself as working for call centre on behalf of Microsoft, I quickly told them where they could go jump to which the guy merely replied I'm glad to hear that and hung up the phone so clearly a prank. If it was a legit service offering he wouldn't have given up so easily, call centre agents have the thickest skins(and one of the worst jobs) in the world (between that and the guy that deals with lost baggage at the airport, EISH! On their site (very poor site) they have customer referral letters and in most of it the "referral" goes something like my friend said your services are scam but you aren't blah blah blah

Anywho, just to be on the safe side I removed all port forwards/open ports I had on my router and monitored for any activity over the following week...suffice to say nothing to write home about so I think it's purely they get your details somewhere and try their luck.

EDIT: Forgot to add that they walked my neighbour through looking at the Event Viewer and they showed a couple of "fatal" system errors (in reality warnings for NTP not being able to update and the odd fews time that she closed programs forcefully and caused an application hang or some such) but hardly anything that means her machine is peril.
 
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They called themselves 'E.T Protections'. Daniel Scot was the suppervisor i spoke to. The phone technician was Etsan....??
The email address: [email protected].
Phone # 021 3007901

As per customer
 
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