When users face computer issues after the support period of their manufacturer has ended, they often turn to third-party tech support services on the internet to provide a solution. The varieties of online tech support vary from legitimately useful services to scams which utilize scare tactics such as fake warnings and charge inflated fees. Security researchers have found that websites which practice the latter form of tech support scam have recently been infecting users with the Nuclear Exploit Kit. An exploit kit is a malicious program used to determine a computer’s vulnerabilities and exploits them by serving a corresponding computer virus. 

In this case the exploit kit has been observed taking advantage of vulnerabilities in the Adobe Flash Player among other programs and of infecting users with ransomware and information-stealing trojans. Ransomware encrypts users' files and demands that they pay a fee to the cybercriminals to regain access to their information. If users pay the ransom it often leads to additional ransom demands, compromised financial information or the outright refusal to unlock the files – costing them both money and lost data. As noted by security researcher Deepak Singh, “The combination of the tech support scam displaying pop-up windows and the Nuclear exploit kit installing ransomware in the background makes this attack a serious problem for users. The fake warnings distract the user while the more dangerous ransomware searches for and encrypts files.”

This may be a new form of an aggressive online scam which combines elements of fraudulent tech support services with a real computer virus concurrently damaging the user’s system or stealing their personal information. Alternately, cybercriminals infect many legitimate websites with similar malware and may have simply infected the sites of the unsuspecting technical support scams, suggesting that there is no honor among cybercriminals.