Fake Virus Scanning Software
Tuesday, 29. September 2009, 11:21:59
It is pretty funny that during the course of my travels across the electronic wastelands of this digital life I have seen an increase in "fake virus" alerts taking to systems. I just took care of three similar attacks and from what I have learn from the experience is that if you wait too long to repair this problem... Just like a cancer... This attack spawns new dimensions of infections.
KNOW WHAT YOUR ANTIVIRUS LOOKS LIKE! All too many times someone sees "the message". It usually states that the virus scanner found a great number of infections and it needs you to fix it. Now the funny thing is either you bought your antivirus or it is free.. Like AVG and etc. What do you know.. Now it is asking you to purchase it. Since you want this god awful infection gone, you quickly reach for your wallet or purse so that you can get this wrapped up quickly before you loose your family pictures to the void of a zero filled drive if by chance this virus decides now is the time.
Too many times we hit the "panic button" but we need to stop for a moment and analyze what is happening. Things like you using Symantec's (Norton) Antivirus but the alerts are coming from a program called "Mr. Antivirus". I have also seen emails claiming to be from institutions or ISPs but on inspection of the header (email to and from information) displayed conflicting information. It is one thing to get scam mail from bank "A" when you do your banking at bank "B" but what happens when you get the magic email that matches your account type?
A person I know uses SBC Global for her ISP and it just so happens that a scam mail that she received was from SBC Global claiming that her account had a virus and her login information was needed in order for the company to run a virus scan on her account and if she did not comply her account would be shut down. She is not completely tech savvy but luckily she knew something was fishy (no pun intended on this fishing scam). Upon review of the header.. It was supposed to be from SBC Global but the email that it came from was a wacked out name @yahoo.com. This is a first step in detecting the false creds in a email. Sometimes this can be difficult if the smtp origin address has been forged. At this point you will have to look for other clues like the route but we will leave that one for another day.
Simple enough to say and another thing to do but if you feel that something isn't right like misspelled words or crazy requests... Stop and check out what you have in front of you.
KNOW WHAT YOUR ANTIVIRUS LOOKS LIKE! All too many times someone sees "the message". It usually states that the virus scanner found a great number of infections and it needs you to fix it. Now the funny thing is either you bought your antivirus or it is free.. Like AVG and etc. What do you know.. Now it is asking you to purchase it. Since you want this god awful infection gone, you quickly reach for your wallet or purse so that you can get this wrapped up quickly before you loose your family pictures to the void of a zero filled drive if by chance this virus decides now is the time.
Too many times we hit the "panic button" but we need to stop for a moment and analyze what is happening. Things like you using Symantec's (Norton) Antivirus but the alerts are coming from a program called "Mr. Antivirus". I have also seen emails claiming to be from institutions or ISPs but on inspection of the header (email to and from information) displayed conflicting information. It is one thing to get scam mail from bank "A" when you do your banking at bank "B" but what happens when you get the magic email that matches your account type?
A person I know uses SBC Global for her ISP and it just so happens that a scam mail that she received was from SBC Global claiming that her account had a virus and her login information was needed in order for the company to run a virus scan on her account and if she did not comply her account would be shut down. She is not completely tech savvy but luckily she knew something was fishy (no pun intended on this fishing scam). Upon review of the header.. It was supposed to be from SBC Global but the email that it came from was a wacked out name @yahoo.com. This is a first step in detecting the false creds in a email. Sometimes this can be difficult if the smtp origin address has been forged. At this point you will have to look for other clues like the route but we will leave that one for another day.
Simple enough to say and another thing to do but if you feel that something isn't right like misspelled words or crazy requests... Stop and check out what you have in front of you.
WIDGETIZE