Beware of Fake Antispyware Programs

When it comes to keeping your financial information safe, one of the biggest items you need to keep protected is your computer. If you use your computer to save financial information or to access accounts, giving someone access to your computer indiscriminately can have devastating results. Therefore, one of the most important things you can do is keep your computer protected and free of spyware. Unfortunately, crooks and thieves are finding ways to take advantage of our fears and are creating harmful software that poses as legitimate AntiSpyware.

According to McAfee security researcher Rahul Mohandas, this practice is becoming increasingly more common. In fact, an entire fake Microsoft AntiSpyware Center was developed for the sole purpose of trying dupe people out of their personal financial information.

“This fake Microsoft AntiSpyware Center page purports to be an ‘Online Security Scanner,’ which scans the system for viruses and spyware,” explains Mohandas. “After the bogus scan, the user will be presented with a dubious and falsified list of Trojans, after which the user will be prompted to download and install an ActiveX Control to remove the threats.”

Once you install the ActiveX Control, you will actually be installing a Trojan that will take over your Explorer home page. It will then display fake alerts and will claim a number of different security threats are taking place. All of this, of course, is simply a ruse to get you to download the “AntiSpyStorm” program. AntiSpyStorm will then offer to provide you a free security scan and will then claim that there are a number of terrible security threats currently on your computer.

All of this hassle serves just one purpose: to get you to give the program your credit card number so you can install the “full version” of their program. The full version really isn’t worth anything at all, and all of the security threats claimed to be found are false.

According to Dave Marcus, Security Research and Communications Manager for McAfee Avert Labs, this type of scam is becoming more and more common. At the same time, this scam is nothing new.

“Truthfully, this isn’t a new technique,” says Marcus, “but we are running across it more and more lately. Any brand that has a lot of awareness associated with it makes a good lure.”

The sad reality is that McAfee representatives claim that they have come across hundreds or perhaps thousands of similar scams. So, make sure to never respond to unsubstantiated antispyware programs and use only those that you know are from a trusted secure source.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Card Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.