Cyber crime thrives on fake anti-virus scareware scams
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The thriving underground cyber crime economy is making enormous sums of money scamming computer users into buying fake anti-virus products that don't protect PCs from malware and can leave users vulnerable to identity theft and fraud.
Legitimate anti-virus vendors are naturally working to stamp out the threats from fake anti-virus malware, of which there are thousands of varieties and many purveyors.
Fake anti-virus malware has spread through hacking of legitimate websites such as the New York Times homepage through malvertising and hacked applications on Facebook, among other techniques.
Anti-virus giant McAfee said on the McAfee Labs Blog that "mafia style" criminal operations employ hundreds of people in companies like Innovative Marketing, a Ukrainian company the Federal Trade Commission has accused of spreading fake anti-virus "scareware" in a fraud scheme.
In June, the FTC settled a case with defendants in a scareware fraud scheme that raked in $1.9 million from sales of fraudulent anti-virus software, which is also called rogueware.
Scareware spreads when a fake anti-virus Trojan is downloaded onto a PC, usually by the user. The cybercriminals use scare tactics to get people to download the Trojan, convincing victims with pop-ups in their web browser that indicate a phony malware infection.
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