Discovery of Malicious Antivirus Program by Kaspersky on ICQ

Security researchers with Kaspersky, has warned of fake advertisements sent by cyber crooks into the ICQ network, an instant messaging tool, with the alias name of a retail chain.

According to Roel Schouwenberg, a Senior antivirus Researcher with Kaspersky, the advertisement faked Charlotte Russe, a women's wear company. On clicking at the advertisement, a user is directed to the company's website, reports cnet on January 25, 2011.

Schouwenberg also notified that by the same scam, a user is also confronted with a screen pop-up, prompting them to download Antivirus8 program for scanning suspicious viruses detected on their system; though actually there exists no such genuine antivirus product.

The most fascinating part of this malware is that the scareware does not require any involvement on the part of the users that usually generates such pop-ups. Even there exists no exploits in the malicious software. It only urges a user to download the redundant and illegitimate antivirus software.

However, Schouwenberg held that employing a brand name has really helped the malvertizing campaign of the rogues, reports softpedia on January 25, 2011.

By the following activity, the rogues were facilitated in several ways. Firstly, they received loads of malicious advertisements into their network. Secondly, the use of alias name, Charlotte Russe's would invite multifaceted problem for the retailer in events of detection of the scheme.

Researchers at Kaspersky have counseled Yield Manager and anticipate their response in this regard, as in this maneuver, ad distributors are manipulated.

The aforementioned instance is a glorious example of the ways in which trusted programs can be utilized for attacking computers according to Schouwenberg. This is reason enough for users to have legitimate antivirus software in their systems, reports esecurityplanet on January 25, 2011.

Besides, another instance of malvertising includes the December 2010 scam event, where researchers reported a similar attack by cyber crooks, who managed to obtain malvertisements in Google-owned DoubleClick and MSN.

Related article: Discovery of More Politically Motivated Spam in the US

» SPAMfighter News - 2/4/2011