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A fake antivirus software has been detected by Sophos. It poses as the Windows Automatic Update facility. According to the article, it redirects a user from the Windows Security Center to the interface of the fake AV.
It presents a user with a false scan of his or her computer. After the scan, it claims that the user’s machine has malware.
The software is supposed to install an XP Internet Security update.
More kinds of this racket will be discovered in the near future writes Rowland, the author of the article.
Source: Sophos
This happens to my wife all the time when she browses facebook. That’s why I have her on Ubuntu. She calls me in every time she has a “virus” and I just smile to myself. It really looks very realistic.
Now that she’s always on the computer doing bills, emailing, importing pictures, shopping and stuff, it’s kind of annoying because I really miss using my Linux desktop.
This seems to be common with ladies. My wife also had one of these ‘viruses’ after giving permission to some online ‘virus scanner’.
I have now warned her never to allow any free scanner.
Yet another similar fake… When will they get tired? It’s a very said they are making new similar versions of fake antivirus softwares..
As long as people keep clicking the fakes and some which really do send in money (to embarrassed to tell anyone they did)these people will keep making new fakes.
They would not waste their time if the did not make any money at it. Just a few people buying pays for their efforts.
Yeah, the level of development and effort that is going into these things, the levels that they go through to disable other AV’s and prevent their own removal pretty much shows, they are making more then enough money to fund a full team to keep on going.
This stuff isn’t like the old days where it was bored college students and people with too much free time on their hands, It’s now international con artists that are essentially invincible to the law because their own countries don’t care to prosecute them.
Fake A/V programs drive me nuts, it really bothers me when someone enters credit card information into one of these programs. I try to warn my clients about dangers like this as much as possible.