Most experienced computer users know how adware and spyware is spread. Typically free programs that are designed for a certain purpose such as KaZaA (for downloading music) are bundled with other applications which contain adware or spyware. A new threat on the scene is called “Rogueware”, Rogueware are meaningful files which in reality can be quite malicious. The most common type of Rogueware are fake anti virus/adware/spyware progams that once installed, say you have lots of viruses/malware installed and in order for the program to remove them you must pay for the full version. In the past, these programs typically spread by advertising on other sites with banners saying things like “1023 Viruses detected on your computer! Click here to fix it now!”.

Recently, one of our Technibble forum members, Buzz; spotted a pattern in posts across a few forums he visited and reported it to us. It appears to be another method of spreading rogueware.

Buzz read this thread on our forums which has a user named “robart” posting the following:

I got this Trojan Virus from a ‘Noble Poker’ program I haven’t used in years. My Norton Anti-Virus and XsoftSpySE wont get rid of it. Is there anyone out there that can help me remove it before my computer crashes?

A few Technibble forum members (Buzz, Mac, Blues and Myself) suggest some legitimate ways to get rid of it and then someone called “marina_meggy” posts the following:

I recommend you to download the free program called Spyware sweeper from –URL Removed– This is one of the very few tested anti-spy ware programs that can help you to remove the Trojan successfully. You would find detailed instructions at the site

What makes this interesting is that Spyware Sweeper (not to be confused with the legitimate application Spy Sweeper) is a known Rogueware program that masquerades as a spyware removal program which asks for money to remove the fake infection.

This same group have been doing the exact same thing on other forums where one of them creates a post saying that they have an infection, and the other replies recommending SpywareSweeper as if they were a helpful forum member.

If you look at the original post on Technibbles forums located HERE. And then look at the post on VirtualDr.com’s forums located HERE. You can see that the posts are almost exactly identical.

After doing a Google Search, I can find many other forums with the exact same post.

Technical forums are still an excellent way to get some computer help, just look at who’s giving the advice on the forum. If the person just signed up and has a post count of 1, it might be worth double checking what they say.