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Skype Hit with Scareware Campaign

Skype subscribers are saying that one fresh malicious campaign is contacting their accounts regarding a particular software update they must install on their PCs, thus published hideyourselfonline.com in news on March 14, 2011.

Actually, Skype users are told through a voice call that their PCs have a virus that impacts Windows XP, Vista and 7. For taking down a patch they should visit www.sosgt.com. But, while the call has been circulating in various versions all of them direct users for visiting one particular website, which upon accessing generates scareware windows and the resultant coercion to users into buying protection software that's really not needed.

States Krebs a security researcher, according to complaints appearing on Skype.com a forum for Skype users, there seems to be numerous others as well who are getting fake security calls like this one. According to him, incase users go to the said website, it instantly projects a "scamscan" pop-up on their browsers that tricks them into believing that their systems are badly infected and that they must be cleansed. Infosecurity-magazine.com reported this on March 14, 2011.

Krebs further states that curiously, these bogus security checkups inform that the user's system is infected with Windows-based virus. But when such a user opts for the "Erase all Threats" link within the pop-up, he's led onto a web-page, which presents a kind of professional service for repairing online, Krebs notes. Infosecurity-magazine.com reported this.

Moreover, during October 2009, according to theregister.co.uk, there had been a scareware campaign in which private Skype accounts received spam mails. The e-mails reportedly, purported to be from one "Online Notification" account as they asserted that infection was found impairing the computers that were supposedly hijacked. Thereafter upon going to the linked URL to gather "additional details," one bogus anti-virus scan started, which cautioned that the systems were crawling with malicious software so that alarmed users were coerced into purchasing cleansing software that had little use.

And though, scams of these kinds have been into existence since long on Skype along with other IM applications, a Skype voice-call of the kind in the latest incidence has never been reported earlier.

Related article: Skype Plugs Critical Security Hole

» SPAMfighter News - 3/28/2011

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