‘FakeXPA’ Now Claims Itself as ‘AVG Antivirus 2011,’ Reports MMPC

According to a security warning by MMPC (Microsoft's malware Protection Center), Rogue:Win32/Fake XPA, which for the past many months had been circulating in the name of "Antivirus 8," is now calling itself "AVG Antivirus 2011." Technet.com reported this on January 31, 2011.

Observes MMPC that creators of FakeXPA thinking that users can be easily duped with its name, which they are calling as a well-known anti-virus firm AVG's product, have reportedly applied AVG's logo to the user-interface of their bogus product.

Like always, this rogueware too inundates victims' PCs with innumerable pop-ups and dialog boxes with varied purposes, including creating panic, socially engineering for fraud, or simply causing destruction such that the user agrees to buy the roguware hoping to have the problems resolved.

Moreover, similar to other scareware products, instances have been found wherein FakeXPA plants its own malicious program, the Alureon Trojan.

Says MMPC, the new scareware compromises the browsing session of the Web-surfer in order that he can be made to believe that infection has set on his system as well as stop him from downloading genuine malware removal software.

Worryingly, cyber-criminals have reaped millions of dollars from the rogue anti-virus business over the past 10 years through hostile promotion methods such as pop-up advertisements on the Web and search engine optimization (SEO) for so deceiving unsuspecting Web-surfers that they voluntarily downloaded the criminals' scareware.

Highlights MMPC that fake anti-malware suppliers in their series of measures to defraud people are choosing the logo and name of authentic products to imitate the genuine security software vendors' actions and characteristics. Moreover, rogue anti-virus companies have as well launched services such as Internet customer support, localization along with Antivirus-Test such as product benchmarking for delivering to clients and raising revenues, MMPC further notes. Threatpost.com published this on February 1, 2011.

Conclusively, users wanting anti-virus software are recommended that they should download free editions that most AV companies offer through their authorized Internet sites. Moreover, for a computer-user who doesn't have an anti-virus loaded but still gets a pop-up alerting of an enormous infection, it means that a rogueware has indeed targeted his system.

Related article: “Loopholes did not cause online banking thefts”: ICBC

» SPAMfighter News - 2/7/2011