Barracuda Networks Admonishes Internet Surfers Against Fake Antivirus

In the backdrop of recent news that suggest more and more incidences of rogue anti-viruses and scareware being distributed across the Internet, online security provider 'Barracuda Networks Inc.' is reporting of a website sponsoring a fake spyware application named "Barracuda Anti-Virus."

Reports state that if this application is downloaded, it carries out a spurious scan on the end-user's PC but in reality, it loads spyware that would show pop-up advertisements along with other undesirable software.

For the recent few years, a lot of bogus antivirus infections have been occurring but a fresh variation of this particular kind of infection is circulating on the Internet in an unnatural manner. Accordingly, a website, which allegedly sells the Barracuda anti-virus program, has been created.

But this website is fake since Barracuda supplies only hardware supported products and does not trade in software. Thus, the new site is exploiting the reputation and good name of Barracuda and tricking users into loading its malicious software. The site has been so designed that it occupies a place near some high-ranking search results, further making the situation complicated for those searching genuine software to clean their PCs from a virus.

Stephen Pao, Vice President of Product Management, Barracuda Networks, said that the bogus 'Barracuda Anti-Virus' software had no connection with Barracuda Networks. According to him, it was just another recent instance of malicious people trying to distribute malware in the name of a trusted and established brand of Internet security, as reported by Virtualization on June 10, 2009.

Additionally, Pao assured that his company had updated its threat databases to safeguard its customers from downloading material or visiting the bogus site. He further said that the company was advising all customers and businesses to directly contact their regular online security products vendors for solutions that would be most appropriate for their networks.

Barracuda Networks is also sharing the information with its fellow vendors who provide Internet security services to make sure that they too update their databases to safeguard clients against this and other websites hosting the offensive software.

Related article: Barracuda.A Bot Infects A Large Network of PCs To Initiate DDoS Attacks

» SPAMfighter News - 6/22/2009