So, I just got a call from “Dell Customer Services” to let me know they were getting notifications of lots of viruses on my system. “OH MY GOD!” I thought to myself, “What can I do?“.

Luckily, my helpful advisor was at hand to offer me a solution to this devastating turn of events.

First he directed me to right-click on “My Computer” and asked what the options were. Telling him, he quickly ascertained that I was a Windows 7 user and asked me to click on “Manage”. I did so and up popped the computer management tab. He then directed me into the Event Viewer > Security tab to see all of the virus reports.

I was stunned. My world shifted. Up until now, I had thought that all of the errors in there were the usual unimportant stuff Windows deals with in the background. But, here was this professional advisor telling me that they were viruses. How did I get through four years of university and numerous years in the IT field without knowing this? Putting aside my first thoughts to draft a letter of complaint to the University of Strathclyde demanding an explanation for why this vital piece of information was left out of my education, I turned back to the problem in hand.

The viruses mocked me. The advisor invited me to try right-clicking on them, invited me to press the delete key to remove these infectious bits of software. Nothing worked. Oh, what was I to do?!?

My saviour offered a voice of calm control. He had a solution. He asked me to go to Internet Explorer. He asked me to type www.ammyy.com and hit return. I did.

Ah, here was ingenious solution. This is why this guy was making the big bucks working for “Dell” and I was still a lowly consultant. Instead of getting me to run something to disinfect my system, he was going to get me to install remote access software so he could log in and do it for me. Sure, that would give him access to everything on my system – passwords, email, accounts etc. – but he was from “Dell”. Okay, he hadn’t told me I was about to install remote access software. In fact, he had called it antivirus software a few minutes before, but what’s the worst that could happen?

He asked me to click on the link to the exe. I did.

He asked me to select run. I didn’t. But told him I did.

He asked me what I could see.

I told him that I could see this was a scam.

I told him that I knew what the event viewer was.

I told him I was an IT professional.

Then I told him to fuck right off.