Time To Go Nuclear
This is the day I used the Nuclear option.
User: Hi, I need your help.
Me: OK, What’s the problem?
User: I need to you incubate something on my computer.
Oh what fresh torment is this?
Me: What do you mean?
User: Look, if you can’t help can you put me through to a senior tech!?
Oh, screw you.
Me: It’s not that I can’t help, it’s that I need more information about your problem before I can help.
User: It’s simple, there is something on my computer and you need to put it in incubation for me!
Me: What type of file is it?
User: I don’t know, I can’t do anything because the program needs admin rights, that’s why I need you!
Me: Have you downloaded a file or been on a dodgy website?
User: I don’t need the 4th degree here, I just need get this incubated and we can both go on with our day!
Me: – If you right click on the green W at the bottom right of the screen and select “Scan Now” it will run a check for anything bad and we can go from there.
I have jumped onto the AV console to have a look as well at this point.
User: I can’t do anything with that as when I click it, it says “Please contact the network administrator to access” blah blah.
Me: I need you to right click on it, not left click.
User: I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING, IT SAYS I CANT!
Clearly I need to escalate this to the “help a moron” division.
Me: There is no need to raise your voice, I am trying to help.
User: It’s simple though, I need your admin rights so that I can move something to incubation. It’s not hard.
Me: OK, I will remote in and have a look. Please click the Rescue Me icon on your desktop.
User: FINALLY, you’re going to do what I asked for in the first place!
Oh, I was now going nuclear.
Me: There is no such thing as incubation or an incubator on your computer. You mean quarantine. You believe you have downloaded a virus or opened a malicious website and got yourself some malware or worse. This doesn’t happen on its own. You have all of the tools needed to diagnose and hopefully remove the infection. You have two buttons on your mouse one on the left and one on the right but refuse to click the correct one in the correct place. I have taken over your machine and I am currently running the scan for the issue. I can also see from your open internet pages that you have been trying to access a number of sites. There are many, many malicious advertisements and links on those sites that are designed to trick you or catch you out and get you to download questionable files. You are in breach of company policy by using your company property for questionable activity. This will be logged and reported. The scan has now completed and found and removed five infections and I can see from my console that your system has blocked and automatically defeated 10s of threats or attacks today so this is clearly an ongoing issue for you.
User: What…
Me: I am now going to escalate this to the IT manager who has been monitoring this call and would like a word.
Click
The user was very quickly summoned to attend a meeting with HR and an appropriate manager and I believe asked to leave the company because the IT Manager reviewed their activity a bit more thoroughly, including their internet use when on the company network/VPN.
The user then tried to sue for unfair dismissal, and the IT Manger actually laughed out loud when he was told that the reason was “unfair invasion of privacy”.