Trick and No Treat with Scareware - Part 4

Visiting a Web Site Can Be Dangerous to Your Computer's Health!

If you didn't fall for the fancy websites and advertisements promoting scareware as a legitimate virus protection program, how else can you get scareware installed on your computer? Unfortunately, you can get scareware installed on your computer with out you being aware of it. The same methods used to get different kinds of malware on your computer are used to infect your computer with scareware.

These methods have changed recently in response to better security protections being used by businesses and home users. What cybercrimals have discovered is that is more difficult to spread malware through the network with increasing adoption of firewalls. Email filtering has made an it more difficult to distribute scareware through email spam. As a result malware and scareware are increasingly distributed through web browsers. Simply by visiting a website your computer can be infected with scareware. What's more, virus protection applications rarely detect this kind of attack.

To infect a computer through a web browser, an attacker must accomplish one of two tasks. Either, they must find a way to get a victim to visit an infected website, or get the victim to click a link on a compromised advertisement. The website may be a site the cybercriminal has created. The website can also be a legitimate website that has been attacked then HTML code has been inserted by the cybercrimal and this compromise has not been detected by the website owner. Usually, large organizations have the IT staff and resources to detect when their organization website has been attacked and compromised. But, smaller businesses do not have these resources. As a result there are a lot of small businesses whose websites are being used to distribute malware and are not aware of it.

To combat this latest method of distribution, search engine companies such as Google and Yahoo have developed "blacklist" of websites that contain malicious code. This protection method is not full proof, and there are still many websites that come up on search results that are compromised. It is a cat and mouse game. Protections are put in place to thwart cybercriminal attacks, so the cybercriminals change their methods to get around the protections.

How do you protect yourself? Continue to use firewalls, virus protection, and the major search engines. You can add to the protections your are currently using by obtaining a website monitor software such as McAfee SiteAdvisor. A power user suggestion: If you using Windows XP, logon to a user account that does not have Administrator privileges, and if you use Windows 7 keep UAC (User Account Control) turned on. Perhaps, the best protection is to stay informed.

Trick and No Treat with Scareware - Part 3

You think you installed the perfect virus protection…or did you get scammed?

You visit a website and see an ad touting an antivirus product second to none. You click on the ad link and are brought to the software manufacturer’s website. On the first page are recommendations and testimonials from third party security product testers ranking the product as the best in it’s class. You are impressed with how it stands up to Norton, McAfee, or Trend according to these recommendations. Besides, you are tired of your current antivirus slowing down your computer, and this product all but guarantees better performance. So, you take the plunge and buy the product.

Without realizing you’ve just been fooled into purchasing and installing a fake antivirus product. It is not only bogus, but all kinds of malware will be installed onto your computer. Welcome to one of cybercriminals favorite bait and switch scam. How do they get away with it?

They build a legitimate appearing website, falsify third party security product tester tests, and advertise using the same methods as legitimate security product companies. Yep, that’s the formula that rakes in millions for cybercriminals. And, you are left with an infected computer, a stolen credit card number, and a bruised ego from feeling like a fool.

How do you fight back? First, do some research before purchasing any security product. These websites below will help. They list legitimate antivirus products, and the corresponding websites. These security product testers will also give you a better idea of how effective one product is compared to another.

http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/index

http://www.westcoastlabs.com/productTestReports/

Trick and No Treat with Scareware - Part 2

How do you recognize scareware?

It may not be as easy as you think. At first Scareware will appear to be a real-time, anti-virus scan of your hard drive. Then a pop-up message appears that your computer is infected with numerous viruses, spyware or other malware. There maybe a bombardment of pop-up warning messages that makes your computer difficult to use, but not in most instances. Keep in mind the scam artists want to fool you into believing the pop-up messages are legitimate. This way they can con you into purchasing the fake protection software, scan your computer for personal identity information, and use your computer to attack other computers.




The Scareware pop-ups will appear in a similar manner and appearance as messages you receive from anti-virus products manufactured by Symantec, McAfee, TrendMicro and other common anti-virus software companies. So, how do you know the difference between your legitimate anti-virus application and scareware? After all, you don't want to ignore a legitimate warning message.



First and foremost, get back to basics...

Know what anti-virus or protection software you have installed on your computer. The scam artists are counting on you not remembering what protection you've installed on your computer. Know the name of the software manufacturer (Symantec, TrendMicro, McAfee, etc.) and know the name of the product (Norton Internet Security, PC-cillin, Total Protection, etc). These products also come with a subscription for updates. Know how to find the subscription information so you can verify when the subscription expires.

Some of the scareware pop-up messages appear to be generated from the Windows Security Center. The Windows Security Center is part of Windows XP. Its purpose is to monitor the status of the presence of an anti-virus application or when the Windows Firewall is turned off. Essentially, the only legitimate messages you will receive from the Windows Security Center are warnings as to the absence of an anti-virus application or warning that your Windows Firewall has been turned off. You can recognize any fake "Windows Security Center" pop-up messages if there is a warning stating that there are infections on the system or if there is an inducement to download or purchase a product.

Unfortunately, if these scareware messages start popping up on your computer it means that your computer is already infected. If you click the pop-up message to purchase the software, a form to collect payment information for the bogus product launches allowing you to download and purchase the fake anti-virus product. But, that is not when your computer gets infected. In most instances, the scareware installed malicious code onto your computer before you saw any pop-up messages... whether you click the warning message, the purchase pop-up form, or not.

Parts three and four will deal with how the scammers get scareware infections on to your computer.

Trick and No Treat with Scareware - Part 1

According the latest research in the last two years, scareware (aka fake security software), emerged as the single most profitable scam strategy for cybercriminals. Thousands of users fall victim to the scam on a daily basis, and the gangs or organized crime syndicates themselves earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

What is scareware? In simple terms it is fake security software masquerading as a legitimately looking security application. Scareware is usually delivered to the end user through a compromised web site. A user will visit a web site, and it can be a legitimate web site, then the user will click on a link or advertisement. By doing so the scareware gets downloaded to the user's computer.

Once downloaded to a user's computer, scareware will not only prevent legitimate security software from starting, but it will also prevent it from reaching its update locations in an attempt to ensure that the security application will not be able to get the latest signatures database. When this happens your anti-virus application will not even recognize the scareware infection. Moreover, scareware will also attempt to make its removal a time-consuming process by blocking system tools and third-party applications that can be used to remove the infection.

There have also been cases where scareware is actually better described as "ransomware" which encrypts an infected user’s files, preventing the user from accessing their files. Then the scareware demands a purchase in order to decrypt the files.

In the next blog posts I'll go into more detail on how to prevent Scareware from getting onto your system, how to recognize scareware versus a legitimate protection application, and how to get rid of scareware if it gets on your computer....

Stay tuned!