Newsweek.Com Also a Victim of Scareware

In accordance with the news reports from pcmag.com published at the beginning of September 2009, scareware or bogus anti-virus software had attacked the popular Internet site "Newsweek.com" in the first week of September.

Describing 'scareware,' security researchers stated that it represents fake software, which in the pretext of assisting computer users in protecting their system's security actually presents annoying or misleading warnings and tries to deceptively make them part with their money for a worthless item.

In the meantime, any user who browsed Newsweek.com was targeted, when on the second page following the top page, he clicked a link named "Politics" that resulted in the bogus pop-up suddenly taking over his browser.
This as well as other screens looking alike local computer software was indeed HTML being sent by advancedpcscanner6.com, a domain that was officially assigned to Bangkok's Prakit A. Jiraporn on September 3, 2009.

Clicking either on 'Cancel' or 'OK' made little difference, as the attacked user was anyway landed on a bogus page that pretended to scan his system.

Also, in case the user attempted at making an exit from the page, an alert appeared stating that problems were being left unresolved on his computer. Moreover, scareware that hit Newsweek.com further tried to pose as performing a security update procedure from Microsoft. Therefore, it's important that computer users falling prey to scareware must execute a proper security scan using reliable anti-virus software to sanitize their systems.

Internet security experts have noted that during recent times, scareware has been getting popular with cyber-criminals, since it has been increasingly appearing on various places like comments posted on Twitter and YouTube, or advertisements posted on widely accessed websites. Currently, it is also appearing on famous and specific websites such as Newsweek.com.

Thus, with the scareware threat suddenly overpowering on unwitting Newsweek users, security specialists provide certain tips to stay clear of becoming victims of such attacks. These tips include avoiding opening links which entice a user towards performing something that appears suspicious, and distancing oneself from everything that promise things that sound unbelievably true, but are not so in reality.

Related article: NCL Spreads Anti-Phishing Awareness

» SPAMfighter News - 10/7/2009