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The ‘most costly’ scam of 2010

March 24, 2010 By Sam Narisi 8 Comments

Security firm McAfee has warned computer users to avoid hackers’ latest trap:

So-called ‘scareware.’

Here’s how the scam works:

While browsing the Web, potential victims see a pop-up ad saying their computer is infected with a virus. If they fall for it, they click a link or button that takes them to a site selling phony anti-virus software.

Once installed, the software turns out to be malware — so not only do victims hand over money for something they don’t need, the program actually steals personal information that can be used for identity theft.

McAfee says it’s seen a 660% increase in scareware scams over the last two years. Scammers make an estimated $300 million worldwide with scareware hoaxes, PCWorld reports.

Warn users in your company, letting them know the legitimate anti-virus software already installed on your network is more trustworthy than a random pop-up ad.

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  • psb2002

    This destroyed my computer and a couple of others in my company. We needed this advice months ago, but I hope others take heed.

  • http://www.smoothwebsurf.com pcsecurity

    A good rule of thumb is, if you didn’t go looking for it, Don’t Buy It! Some of the variants of these types of malware include, Home Antivirus, Vista Antivirus, XP Antivirus and Windows Antivirus. These are typically followed by the current year (ie Home Antivirus 2010).

  • Antoinette Kennedy

    I keep getting these pop-ups and I keep clicking on the X to get rid of them, but this morning when I turned on my personal computer, it booted up with these pop ups and I can’ get rid of them nor can I use anything else on my computer. What should I do?

  • Scott R

    Personal Anti-virus is the one I’ve seen the most.

    This type of malware or scareware as you folks call it is very easy to remove but it still costs the users time and money to get it done. It tends to put users into panic mode when it really isn’t a huge deal unless credit card information was given.

  • SerQet

    The best advice I received regarding this type of malware/scareware is to not click on any part of the window, including clicking the X to close the window. You have to open your Task Manager and kill the iexlpore.exe service. This will close all of your IE windows and allow you to safely avoid the virus. To the user who can’t do anything on their computer, the same thing happened to my sister. She paid GeekSquad $200 to remove it.

  • Peter Nyikos

    I had this problem a number of years ago and I’m surprised it isn’t mentioned routinely now. The advice I got from the computer staff in my university department was to simply close the other applications and log off without clicking anywhere on the offending window.

    Getting rid of the malaware was not easy–even after our computer services personnel thought they had removed it, it re-surfaced. They wound up giving me another computer; the old one was getting obsolete anyway.

  • Gary

    A few of our users have been hit by these too. We have found that the application Malware Bytes is quite effective at usualy removing this. You need to install, then reboot to safe mode and run it from there with full scans but then it almost always removes all traces of the offending trojans and other malware. Maybe only 10-20% of the time to do we have to resort to wipe and reinstall, the rest of the time Malware Bytes is able to fix it. (no, I have no connection to the company.. it’s just a tool I found that works good enough that I’ve purchased licenses for all my techs)

  • Paul

    I think the biggest difficulty is explaining to a layman how to tell the difference between all the various system pop-ups that might genuinely be reporting a problem, versus the rogue ones as they get cleverer in appearing “real”. It is the same problem with websites and phishing emails – it isn’t always so easy for someone who isn’t particularly IT literate to spot the real from the fake.