New (to me) BT Open Reach Scam

5 Dec 2018 16:56:27

Mick Burrell

I've just heard from a lady who was contacted by someone saying they were from BT Open Reach, wanting to check her internet speed. He asked if she was using a Mac and as she was, transferred her straight away to his supervisor. (The lady said she should have been suspicious at that point - with BT she'd have expected to be on hold for at least ten minutes!) The supervisor asked her to run the Terminal app and type in a command which she remembers as ending in "stat" which I believe gives information about files. At that point, she turned off her machine and hung up the phone.

Note:
I'm convinced BT Open Reach would know what speed broadband they were supplying but never, I'll repeat, never allow anyone to access your machine using the Terminal app. I often joke it's appropriately named but it can be terminal in the wrong hands. (Terminal is a useful tool for UNIX geeks who know far more than me but want to access the very depths of their Mac in ways that nothing else can.)