| On 10.19.09, In Uncategorized, by deep |
According to report from Symantec, tens of millions of U.S computers are running a fake security software which they have either paid for or have downloaded for free. These softwares make its way into the computer system by fake virus alert which has been planted by the cyber thieves.
“Lots of times, in fact they’re a conduit for attackers to take over your machine,” said Vincent Weafer, Symantec’s vice president for security response.
“They’ll take your credit card information, any personal information you’ve entered there and they’ve got your machine,” he said, referring to some rogue software’s ability to rope a users’ machine into a botnet, a network of machines taken over to send spam or worse.
Source : yahoo
Its astounding to find out that there are on figures tens of millions people are under a threat of being attacked by these fraud cases.
Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43 million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.
Source : yahoo
As a result these softwares have been named as scareware, as they give false alarm. Its very difficult to identify these softwares as they make themself as authenticate as possible. There also a rise of these affiliates working in Twitter encouraging user to download softwares. Its most interesting to find the sources of these software:
About half the servers for scareware are in the United States, the report says, with Germany holding 11% and Ukraine 5%. Other countries are said to include Canada, the United Kingdom, China, Turkey, Netherlands, Italy and Russia, making it very global in scope.
source : network world
26 Responses
I think people need to know more about this. Make a list and post it on the web.
i never get viruses EVER nor do i have any fake software, spyware, malware, adware, or anything of the sorts and by the way I use Vista. My pc is perfect.
What symantec doing for the virus. I believe that Symantec, Norton, McCafee and other who is making vaccine for the virus they are the virus creator. You belive on it or not but that is true.
Most of the time virus is not in the market and these companies made the vaccine and give them a name without any research of the virus.
This stuff is a pain in the butt…I work as a IT Tech and it seems like every other week someone gets on for these. They are a pain to get off too.
Does the writer of this article speak English? I think the content has merit, but I question the grammar and syntax.
I have had this happen to me countless times, which resulted in me reformatting my computer completely and losing alot of valuable data.
From my own experience I recommend buying a low priced IDE Harddrive for backup from ebay. I got one for about $50 with 200Gb of space.
Then download a program called unlocker. This program is an excellent tool that will kill dependencies from a running process, delete stubborn trojans and fake programs. I have found this free tool valuable.
Also, A little tool I have found useful is Combofix which has gotten rid of rootkit viruses that usually piggy back onto these fake programs.
For more useful tips like this, visit my site http://www.justgeekstuff.com as I usually share my experiences and resolutions like these.
Your Comments: With all the typos and poor grammer in this article, it makes me wonder if it is a fake!
Let’s all buy a MAC!
Virus, well as for Norton and McCafee I don’t think they make viruses but I know from my past involvement with computers neither one of them are worth the money. AVG Free is worth more than either of the two above and for the paid subscription of AVG no one has been better at knocking off Virurses and in some cases spyware.
There are companies our there who evaluate these anti-viruses but 99% of the time they lean towards the ones who “pay to say” they are the best.
If you check back into the arcives of, oh say, PC World or PC Mag. you will fine where they have evaluated ALL these Anti-Virus programs and have listed AVG as the best of all paid and Free programs.
Well eveyone has their own ideas but mine is based on what I’ve read and what I have used. so good luck.
I agree with Lon but to clear one thing not mentioned…Norton is Symantec and if you buy a p.c. you will find symantec on almost all of the new computers…First thing I’d do after installing your system programs is look for Symantec and uninstall it before you go any farther. If you don’t it will LATCH it self to your programs and when you try to uninstall it the Symantec program will suck out stuff from other programs and mess up your system.
How did I come up with this…simple the last 5 computers I purchased had Symantec on them and they did exactly that. #5 p.c. I uninstalled Norton first and no more problems ..I did install AVG on all my other systems.
Mr. Herron, I do not see anything in the questionair about Grammer, nor English comp. How about subject matter and stick to the question…! Of which he did. you should try it too.
Some people here speak English and not too good with the Grammer. But some who are so perfect in mind find it enduring to make stupid remarks about some ones way of speaking. That is not only rud but also prejudice. I’m sure you guys don’t speak Cherokee, Kiawah, Russian, probably can’t multiplay without a calculator so what make you so special…Oh I see a
“I’m better than you” attatude. In truth You suck.
Many of these scareware programs/software are being presented on popular social sites like FaceBook and Myspace, they create a page popup which simulates a virus scan starting up, meanwhile trying to get users to accept the software. Its a simple tactic yet to the computer newbie it is effective.
Recently, I wanted to install AVG on my computer and could not get rid of Norton’s. I finally took it to a computer repair shop; the tech told me Norton’s, along with another well know brand want you to renew their anti-virus program and won’t allow you to uninstall their’s. Actually, my Norton’s had expired, and there did not seem to be a link to disable it, so tried to uninstall it. I finally gave up and paid out $50 to have a tech get Norton’s off the regisery or whatever. I worked for one of the largest computer manufacturers for 20 years before retiring. I wish they would give people an option regarding their security software.
Your Comments Recently my wife was on our home computer. We have a Dell PC. She got a message RE: (You have 20 viruses do not shut your computer down this will cause your computer to crash.) She did not turn the computer off…she said she could not navigate to another page basically the computer was frozen-up. The next day I got on the computer and ran McCafees. Sure enough McCafees said that I had 20 Type : Trojan Detection names: Fake Alert – Green Av. I Fixed it with MacCafees and everything seems to be OK. Any Thoughts?
My first computer purchase arrived with Norton and I soon found out that the anti virus program/software,didn’t do anything to stop or vault any viruses.I ended up taking my pc to a tech. to have the virus removed,as I myself am not a computer geek.The tech. told me he had removed the virus and also removed Norton but replaced it with AVG,with the explination that AVG would protect my pc and it did!
I have since bought the AVG software and will continue to use it—-It really works!!!!
LOL !! And why doesn’t Symantec/Norton block it or quarantine it! THATS MY QUESTION!! It amazes me that none of the Anti-Virus/Security suites catch this scareware/hoax install. I repair computers and come across the scareware issue 2-3 times a month. Some PPL pay so they can use the machine. When I explain what happened and its a fake, they question me if I’m correct. So I just google whatever name they are using for the program and they wakeup to reality.
BUT, why dont the Security Software Companies add the scareware to the database. Thats what has me baffled. The only one that does flag it, is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. And you have to run that 2-3 times in safe mode for a clean scan. End of Rant
The manufacture of virii and spyware should be a capital crime. I have no problem dealing out the death penalty for the goons that make this stuff. There are too many humans around anyway, so getting rid of the mean and nasty ones would be a great start to a mass culling of the herd.
People who rite articles like that one dont understand that thare are more people whta does speak english more better than they dew. I dont understand why the editerr even let the article got to the page of the maguzine. It really makes it hard to reed when peoples just rush thru thare writings. I remooved Symantec frum my computers bekause it made my stuff go really slower and it made me madder then a wet hen. Now I use the Trend kind what works lots more gooder. I am sorry if I did writing over peoples heads like a college paper but this is a seryus problum in society today and grammer needs to be remembered for are future generations so they will to write more gooder and learn our kids something.
I have a MAC…got a virus!
The author of this article only want to warn us about there is a fake security software, not try to teach us English. If you don’t want to believe it then don’t, but don’t use your stupid prejudice comments to distort the fact. And for “blowjoe” I see you’ve mispelled grammar yourself. Think before you criticize idiot!
To Quote: “You suck”? Well, that makes your statement of great value. How professional!
You know, this report really ticks me off! How the hell does Symantec know anything about how many computers are infected in this manner? Never ever ever have I seen any Symantec product protect any computer it was infected, I mean installed, on stop any type of this rogue protection software from being installed or operating on the machine. I … Read Moreput ABSOLUTELY ZERO faith in Symantec! If Symantec comes forward at this time with some sort of “Solution” for this problem then I say they were in bed with the enemy brooding this situation so that they may profit! Curse Symantec and their deceitful Micro$oft like practices.
http//siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php
Follow this link for the removal of those rogue “anti virus” progs
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Symantec was te worst experience for me and i don’t beleive anything they may say because they are a fake by themselves!!
I remember why i did put the prgm in the garbidge…I was updating that Anti-virus and they gave me 22 viruses…That was so bad for my sys. that i had to reformat…
You want a comment? Don’t buy a prgm that cost a lot of $$$ when you can get a much better prgm for FREE!!!