One of the most regular discussions we have with customers concerns machines infected through the use of music/video download programs such as Limewire and BitTorrent...
Scam Antivirus installation...
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Excellent article on Scareware...
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Scam Antivirus installation...
A lot of customers have fallen foul of the recent WinAntivir or Windows Antivirus 2008/2009 "infections"...
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Peer to peer file sharing utility TorrentSpy has been forced to shut down operations, along with a fine for $110million dollars (£56million)...
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A lot of customers have fallen foul of the recent WinAntivir or Windows Antivirus 2008/2009 "infections".
Basically the situation is as follows. You are happily surfing away when you come across a website that suddenly pops up extra windows. One of these claims to be the Windows Security Centre telling you that you are at risk, that your antivirus is ineffective and then offers a link to download a program that will resolve all of these issues.
Except its not real. Its a scam. Designed to take your money for an antivirus you dont need. It will disable your genuine protection software when you agree to the download (which is nigh on impossible to avoid), and it will hijack your browser, so that any search results will not be genuine, but results such as only sites they want you to see.
The Register (a tech website) have produced an excellent article on the anatomy of one such "infection". Its well worth the read, as it has screenshots of what happens as you visit one of these infected sites. Its starts off a bit geeky, but stick with it:-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/anatomy_of_a_hack/
As he writes on the last page:- Learn just a little about how your computer looks normally so you can detect changes. The fake Windows Security Center is a very nice touch that could fool almost anyone except who doesn't pay attention to what the real one looks like and is called.
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