ALERT for All of My OZB Colleagues to a New Internet Scam Twist

Received one of your never ending phone calls today from a caller with a foreign accent saying my IP address address has been compromised and my PC hacked. I asked which IP address was that.

When I asked him to confirm my IP address (which I know) he instructed me to type into my Chrome browser "my 1p address location", and then he proceeded to recite the info displayed on the web page. (All public info)

I am no PC guru but I do believe the IP address shown on that web page is that for Chrome, and most definitely not that of my actual Telstra IP address.

Pretty sneaky and lesser knowledgeable people would be satisfied the caller was genuine, - this just shows these mongrels will stop at nothing to try and rip off innocent people.

Comments

  • +5

    Are you still on the phone with the caller?

  • +2

    thought this was ancient?

  • Sorry I'm not a colleague anymore after Scotty laid me off :(

    • +5

      Username checks out.

  • +2

    Chrome doesn't have it's own IP address. Each device on your home network has an IP address on your home network which is managed by your router, and your entire network has a public IP address which other computers and websites see.

    There's no reason for concern if they have either. Your public IP changes all the time unless you have paid for a static IP address. Even if they did have your public IP address, they would need to bypass your router firewall and built-in security for each individual device. The only thing they could do with your public IP address is DDoS your network, which can effectively knock out your internet, but your ISP should have security to mitigate this.

    There's not much they can do with your internal network IP addresses unless there's some flaw in their security which opens them up to traffic from the internet.

  • +3

    Out of interest did the google search come back as?
    "Your IP Address is 66.249.65.192. This is the public IP address of your computer."
    "IP Location Mountain View, California (US) [Details]"
    "Host Name crawl-66-249-65-192.googlebot.com"

    "my 1p address location" the incorrect spelling "1P" and not the correct "IP" gets you the above results.
    Generic info like that is likely what the scammers are attempting to spook others with. But it has nothing to do with chrome or any browser. But of the bot that logs sites and stuff for search results.

    I wonder if this will now appear on google? Hi everyone on google reading this if it does. :)

    TheAccountant pretty much has it bang on other then in some aspects outside of static your IP address may never change. If you have either CGNAT or a sticky dynamic IP configuration. Such as exists on HFC.
    I have had the same IP for 14 months and counting and I don't pay for a static one. :)

    • I just searched that "1P" thing and got the same result. It seems that those scammers have found a static search result to scam innocent people.

  • +1

    Install an answering machine on the phone, with caller line display & never pick it up, unless it's from someone you know.

    • +2

      We got rid of our home phone and only use our mobiles; now we have unlimited calls and sms. Before that we had an answering machine and got a lot of hung ups as soon as people heard the machine. It is sad that these scum are out there.

  • +1

    Nah, this 'vindows technical department' scam is many years old. They moved on to recorded NBN disconnection messages and have recently changed to Amazon Prime resubscriptions.

  • Did you know, that not all white vans contain candy inside?

    Why are you even getting these calls?

  • You also have an arrest warrant mate. Watch your back.

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