Bank-raiding ‘texts, calls and emails’ to come after mass IT outage as experts share signs crooks are targeting you

CRIMINALS will come crawling out of the woodwork to scam victims as the world grapples with a global IT catastrophe.

A rogue software update on Friday left Windows PCs unable to turn on around the world – with supermarkets, banks, airlines, and even hospitals reporting issues.

Reuters

Screens turned blue leaving machines unusable, like this checkout at a store in Australia[/caption]

Spencer Clinton For The US Sun

The global cyber outage even left iconic screens blank in Times Square, New York[/caption]

Security giant CrowdStrike was to blame, for bungling the update sent to business computers running its Falcon anti-virus software.

It meant that Windows PCs were faced with the “Blue Screen of Death” that prevented them from booting up properly.

The event has caused IT chaos globally, with CrowdStrike’s CEO saying the company is “deeply sorry” for the world-shaking mishap.

Now security experts have told The U.S. Sun that criminals may take advantage of the event to target new victims – even if your PC wasn’t affected by the outage.

There are two groups that will be targeted, according to Calvin Gan, Senior Manager of Scam Protection Strategy at F-Secure.

First up are the businesses hit by the outage, and second are regular people whose machines were totally fine.

“Now that these affected companies are in the public news, these companies need to be monitoring their communication channels for malicious calls or messages,” Gan told The U.S. Sun.

“Which may be under the pretence of offering support, but may in fact have an ulterior motive.”

Regular people will mostly be facing “disruption” to their healthcare, travel, and banking.

But Gan had “evergreen advice” for normal web users too, including spotting signs that you’re being scammed by enterprising crooks.

“If they have been performing bank transactions but these have failed, be aware of calls from your bank and properly verify the legitimacy of them,” Gan told us.

“In particular checking that the phone number belongs to the bank in question.

“If they were impacted by the disruption to airline services, monitor for phishing emails claiming to offer refunds for missed flights or similar compensation.”

“In general, be aware of any emails, messages or calls which use an urgent tone of voice such as ‘Act now, do this, reply now or you will miss the opportunity’.

“As these could be scammers trying to take advantage of the situation.”

Earlier today, experts told The U.S. Sun that hackers might try to replicate the outage in the future.

Reuters

Thousands of flights have been impacted due to screen issues at airports around the world[/caption]

And security pros warned that it could take the world “weeks” to recover from the fallout of the outage.

But not everyone is feeling the misery: The U.S. Sun shared how Apple Mac fans are overjoyed they dodged the outage.

CrowdStrike has now issued a fix for the issue, but many Windows machines will still need manual repairs.

A Microsoft spokesperson told The U.S. Sun. “Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally.

“We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”