Businesses Remain Scared of Spear-Phishing as Attackers Study Behavior

Scared is a strong word, but the reality, according to a Websense analysis by Patrik Runald, is that spear-phishers, like the ones that compromised a White House network last week, are implementing new evasion tactics, fundamentally changing their attack strategies, and revolutionizing the target...

FTC Takes On Scareware Marketers, Court Imposes $163M Judgment

The United States District Court of Maryland ruled in favor of the Federal Trade Commission on Sept. 24, imposing a judgment of more than $163 million against the managers and directors of an enterprise whose sole function the FTC alleges was to defraud its customers with scareware. Kristi Ross w...

FBI Warns Users of New 'Reveton' Scareware Scam

The FBI is warning consumers about a new scam that’s using a piece of malware called Citadel to redirect users to a scam site that installs scareware on their machines and demands a $100 payment to unlock them. The twist in this scam is that it uses the threat of prosecution by the Department of...

Malware Poses as US Department of Justice Violation Notice

Posing as the US Department of Justice DoJ, a new variant of the Citadel Malware called Reveton is responsible for a ransomware campaign that attempts to extort $100 from its victims. The infections are occurring after users are lured to a drive-by download site where a dropper installs the Citad...

Malware Campaign Extorts Users with SOPA Threats

A new scareware-ransomware hybrid attempts to convince users they are being sued in violation of the Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA and offers to remedy the problem if users purchase a fake antivirus solution. The malware claims to have detected illegal torrent files on the computer and offers to...

Rogue Antivirus advertised on 200000 hacked Web pages

Rogue Antivirus advertised on 200000 hacked Web pages The Websense has detected a new wave of mass-injections of a well-known rogue antivirus campaign, a new mass injection attack has infected over 200,000 Web pages, amounting to close to 30,000 unique Web hosts. The attack uses SQL injection...

Fake Antivirus Scams Targeting Android Users

Fake antivirus software, or “scareware” scams have been one of the tried and true methods that crooks have used to make illegal profits online in recent years. The scams often offer convincing replicas of legitimate anti malware software to trick users into installing malicious programs that can...

Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning

Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning, where an automated message what I like to call a "Digital Dorothy" warns you in a semi-robotic voice that your computer's security is not up-to-date. "Attention: this is an automated...

Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning

Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning Automated Skype calls spreading fake anti-virus warning, where an automated message what I like to call a "Digital Dorothy" warns you in a semi-robotic voice that your computer's security is not up-to-date. "Attention: this is an automated...

uTorrent Site Compromised, Client Replaced With Scareware

Attackers on Tuesday hacked the uTorrent.com service, replacing the uTorrent software download with a rogue antivirus program that demanded payment from users in order to remove non-existent malware from their machines. The attack occurred Tuesday just after 4 a.m. Pacific time and the rogue AV...

Report: Q2 Threat Evolution, the Year of the Hacktivist?

Scareware and Rogue AV are back with a vengeance in 2011, after receding in 2010 according to Kaspersky Lab’s latest threat evolution report. According to the report, the rogue AV resurgence is significant not only in scope, which was substantial, with the Kaspersky Security Network KSN detecting...

Get Your New Video Codecs–and Scareware

Scareware gangs have been using pretty much the same tactics since the dawn of time. Or at least since 2005. They compromise Web sites, use them as jumping off points for pop-up boxes that aim to terrify the citizenry into thinking their PCs are infected and downloading fake security software. Bu...

Google Search Now Displaying Warning About Malware Infections

Google is taking the unusual step of displaying a message at the top of its search results pages for some users, alerting them to the fact that their computers may be infected with malware. The action is the result of an investigation in which the search giant discovered that some malware-infecte...

Head of Russian Payment Processor ChronoPay Arrested

Pavel Vrublevsky, the head of a prominent Russian payment-processing company, ChronoPay, was arrested in Russia on suspicion of hiring someone to launch a denial-of-service attack against one of his company’s main competitors. The arrest is the latest in a series of high-profile actions against...

Scareware Takedown By FBI, Int'l Authorities Results in Two Arrests

The FBI has made a major dent in the huge scareware and rogue antivirus problem that has been plaguing Internet users for years now, arresting two people and seizing dozens of computers, servers and bank accounts as part of a large-scale coordinated operation in twelve countries. The operation,...

Fake Apple Store Emails Redirect to New WikiPharmacy

Fake Apple Store order notification emails floating around the Web right now are redirecting to a new site pushing the same old familiar list of discount read: fake pharmaceuticals. Similar scams have been going on for months now. They typically redirect to a relatively familiar pharmacy page...

Fake Mac OSX AV Continues To Spread

Attacks targeted at users of Apples Mac OSX may be more common than previously thought, according to a post on Kaspersky Lab’s Securelist blog. A recent spate of attacks that use infected Google Image searches to compromise user machines is also serving up fake anti-virus to users of OSX, accordi...

Crimeware Kit Emerges for Mac OS X

Crimeware kits have become a ubiquitous part of the malware scene in the last few years, but they have mainly been confined to the Windows platform. Now, reports are surfacing that the first such kit targeting Apple’s Mac OS X operating system has appeared. The kit is being compared to the Zeus...

Web-Based Spam Now a Global Problem

BOSTON–Since virtually the dawn of the commercial Web and the advent of widespread email use, spam has been a major problem and it has grown to a point that botnets are now spewing trillions of spam messages every month. But, email spam is just one piece of a much larger ecosystem that now is...

Step 7: Practice Safe Browsing

Rogue antivirus and scareware typically requires user interaction to get a toe hold on victims’ computers. Users can protect themselves by steering clear of suspicious or merely opaque links such as the shortened links common on Twitter and other social media platforms. Beware of pop-up ads warni...