Total PC Defender – The Latest Scareware Scam

Internet security firm SpyZooka is cautioning netizens of a new piece of fake security software or scareware called Total PC Defender.

According to the security firm, Total PC Defender belongs to the Desktop Defender 2010 family of scareware. As far as further details of the scareware are concerned, it displays phony security warnings deceiving users into believing that their computers are in fact infected with a piece of malware.

Security experts are appealing users not to fall for these false security warnings as this is nothing else but yet another scareware. Total PC Defender typically infiltrates a PC using a Trojan file, and is meticulously designed to execute automatically with the Windows start up. So this may be well called "invasion" rather than "attack".

The experts further highlighted that if a user's computer is found infected with this malicious program, then the priority should be to eliminate the scareware from the infected machine.

Besides this, they also noted that removal of Total PC Defender from an infected PC can be done in two ways: by reformatting the infected hard drive and using authentic antispyware software of a well-known vendor. However, it was emphasized that only users fully aware of scareware should make attempt at manually getting rid of Total PC Defender from their PCs.

Meanwhile, this incident of Total PC Defender scam only proves that scareware scams are surging globally. It is learnt that in the beginning of this year almost all security firms predicted an increase in scareware scams in 2010.

Just few days back, another security firm McAfee revealed in its report that scareware are victimizing a million netizens daily around the world. In the United States, 69,000 such cases are seen daily. The report also stated that scareware scams are bringing in huge profits for cybercriminals globally.

So, the best way to remain safe and protected is to keep computer systems updated by installing latest version of some reputed vendor's security software.

Related article: TDL4 Worms Discovered in Bitcoin Pools: Trend Micro

» SPAMfighter News - 3/27/2010