Fake Anti Virus
Here are snippets
from a report I read by Sophos.com.
FakeAV is short for fake anti virus, which is a class of malware that displays false alert messages to the victim.
Malware is short for malicious software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent.
FakeAV
or Fake AntiVirus, also known as Rogue AntiVirus, Rogues, or ScareWare, is a
class of malware that displays false alert messages to the victim concerning
threats that do not really exist. These alerts will prompt users to visit a
website where they will be asked to pay for these non-existent threats to be
cleaned up. The FakeAV will continue to send these annoying and intrusive
alerts until a payment is made.
During the last year, the number of FakeAV
executables has grown enormously. SophosLabs has seen the quantity of unique
variants grow from less than 1,000 to well over half a million. This huge rise
in popularity among malware writers is primarily due to the direct revenue source
that FakeAV provides. Compared to other classes of malware such as bots,
backdoor Trojans, downloaders and password stealers, FakeAV draws the victim
into handing money over directly to the malware author.
Once FakeAV is installed, it will initiate
a fake system scan, where many non-existent threats will be discovered. The
main FakeAV window is often very professionally created and victims can easily
be convinced that they are using a genuine security product.
More Scams by Sophos:
- Password reset scams: Victims receive a message supposedly from a popular website, informing them that their password has been reset and the new one is in the attached file.
- Package delivery scam: Details
of a (fictitious) recent postal delivery are included in an attached file.
In reality, the attachment will install FakeAV
- Ecard scams: An email is
received purporting to be from a legitimate ecard company. In fact, a
FakeAV installer is attached
- Account
suspension scam: Victims receive an email message suggesting access to
a specific account has been terminated and they need to run the attached
file to fix the issue.
So, the creep who dreams up these fake
anti viruses is the same pond-scum who actually designs the viruses that destroys
our computers. Obviously, this morally
offensive person is… brilliant. I can
only image how successful he/she could be if they did an honest days work. Do
you agree?
