Kids’ Choice Awards Exploited to Distribute FAKEAV

According to the experts at Trend Micro, a security firm, cyber-criminals are exploiting any information or news that attracts public attention for the dissemination of FAKEAV programs.

This observation follows the detection of FAKEAV binaries that were served up through news stories regarding the "2010 Kids' Choice Awards" that were concluded recently. The poisoned search phrases including "Kids Choice Awards 2010 Date," "Kids Choice Awards 2010 Air Date" and "Kids Choice Awards 2010 Live" and many more bring up several malicious results on Google search engine.

On clicking these malicious links, Web-surfers come across fake anti-virus warnings that inform them that there may be malware on their computers.

Consequently, the warnings suggest users must scan their systems and check for security holes. However, the operation is totally false and the users may even buy so-called "security software" that's in reality malicious software in disguise. Online crooks manage to make innocent users provide personal credit card details enabling them to penetrate the latter's PCs along with bank information.

The experts commented that this business of fake anti-virus proves extremely lucrative for cyber-criminals as they reap massive amounts of dollars using bogus malware-fighting modules. They note that these criminals have left no region on the globe untouched to target with bogus AV applications.

Notably, it's relatively easy for IT and Internet security experts to spot these malware campaigns, but difficult for other users.

In the current FAKEAV attack, the Trend Micro experts advise end-users, especially younger people, that they must be very careful while doing online search on current or popular topics. According to them, malware pushers are skilled at managing their Web-pages to be near the high-ranking search results.

Meanwhile, likewise the current attack targeting websites which younger users highly visit, the site pertaining to the talent program, 'If I Can Dream' lately faced hackers' assault of website defacement. Thus it's important to always exercise caution while visiting websites, which are latest and hot in discussion since cyber felons target them for spreading malware.

Overall, looking at the rate at which malware is growing; computer owners worldwide must necessarily install security software on their systems before going online.

Related article: Kids’ Programs Targeted for Spyware and Adware

» SPAMfighter News - 4/8/2010