Greg's Corner

Can scammers freeze your phone?

By Greg Collier

Sometimes, the better story isn’t what’s in the headline, but what’s buried in the body. For example, take this story from Durango, Colorado. In it, a local coffee shop is targeted in a police impersonation scam that specific to small businesses. Scammers called the shop posing as police, and told one of the shop’s employees that one of their bank deposits was made with fraudulent bills. The employee was told the shop could be in trouble if someone didn’t make a $1500 payment.

Thinking they were talking to the police, the employee took the $1500 and left the shop to arrange the payment through a money transfer service. The employee was sent a barcode that could be scanned at the point of transfer to send the money. However, sometime during the call, the scammers asked for the phone number of the shop owner, which the employee gave them.

Another employee saw the first employee leave with the money and called the shop owner. The shop owner tried calling the employee who took the scammers call, but the call function from their phone had been disabled. Could the scammers have remotely disabled her phone just by having her phone number?

Most of the attacks we’re aware of that can disable your phone, cannot be implemented almost instantaneously like that. In most cases, the user of the phone would need to accidentally download some kind of malware. Or, the scammers would need to do a SIM-swapping attack, which can’t be performed that quickly. So, was the shop owner’s phone attacked, or was their phone freezing just an unfortunate coincidence? Unfortunately, we can’t say for certain, but local police are examining the phone for answers.

To better protect your phone from such attacks, it’s best to install an antivirus program and occasionally run scans on your phone for malware. As far as the business cam goes, keep in mind that actual police departments and law enforcement agencies will never call you asking for money. That’s not how the police or banks work. If you own a small business, you may want to share this story with your employees.