Remote access tool
Software that lets someone else see and control your device. Legitimate in IT support; the core of tech support and refund scams.
The tools themselves are ordinary and widely used by real IT departments. What makes them dangerous is that granting access is a single decision that hands over everything at once: your email, your banking session, your files, your saved passwords.
The standard scam sequence is a fake problem, a call to “support”, an instruction to install a tool, and then a staged demonstration — a doctored bank page showing an over-refund, or a fake error log. Once someone else controls the screen, what you are shown is no longer evidence of anything. Nobody legitimate will call you and ask to connect to your computer.
Where it shows up
- Fake tech support — A fake problem with your computer, solved by giving a stranger control of it — and then of your bank.
- Refund and remote access scams — A refund you never asked for, paid in too generously, and a screen you no longer control while you send the difference back.