Brother setup support scam
I got a new printer and googled “Brother printer setup,” which brought up a very official looking “Brother Setup Support” webpage. I accessed the chat window, and the woman connected me by phone with a tech in India, who said he needed access to my computer to figure the problem out. After a while he said that my network was corrupted , I had no firewall, and I needed to have someone else clean that up and install a proper firewall. He showed me a page (that I realized later wasn’t really from my computer) that said my firewall was not active, then he tried hard to convince me that someone (other than him) had access to my entire computer. I declined, telling him that I didn’t feel comfortable with it and that I’d take it to the local Apple people to trouble shoot. He said it wasn’t a computer problem, it was a network problem. I realized later that I’m not even on a “network,” so that doesn’t make sense. I asked him if I’d have to pay this next person and when he said yes, I said no thanks and that I’d find someone local. After I hung up and thought about it, I knew something was wrong and called the real Brother company, who said this is a scam that “they’re working on.” I then googled it and found that they’ve know about it since at least 2018 — and haven’t fixed it yet!
I don’t think there’s an issue with my internet, and can’t find any evidence of malware or viruses on the laptop, but did a full backup and restarted it to make sure. This has been intensely stressful, and I’m still not sure if he might have installed something on my computer... Is there an easy way for me to check this? I’m on a MacBook Air, running OS 13.4.1
MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
