Sheriff’s Office Urges Users to be Vigilant of Scareware Scams

Netizens are being asked to be wary of scareware by the Jefferson's County Sheriff's Office in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Sheriff's Office explained that this deceitful anti-virus software appears as an authentic program. It is potential enough to show apparently real-time anti-virus scanning of the hard drive of user's PC. A list of well-known software icons is also displayed by the scareware; however, to visit the actual website to see recommendations or to review, the user can not click on the link.

This scareware is threatening many users and is awfully aggressive in its efforts to entice the user to purchase the devious software which will purportedly viruses from their system.

These threats are possibly received on account of clicking the ads enclosed on any website. It is quite difficult to close a popup by clocking on the 'X' or 'close' button, once it appears while working on or browsing a website. The moment a user clicks the pop-up to buy the software he/she receives a form that acquires payment details charge him for the bogus product.

However, in some cases, the scareware can successfully plant malicious code on the PC, even if the user doesn't click the pop-up. Software download can result in the installation of Trojans, viruses, and/or keyloggers on to the system of the user, and his system being seized by secluded malware vendors.

Scareware is a big business accounting for around 80% of what is seen by users every day.

As stated by Symantec Vice President, Shantanu Ghosh, on the growing success of scareware-based scams, the only agenda behind defrauding naïve users to purchase scareware seems to be the standard intentions of cyber assailants, i.e. making huge bucks, as reported by expresscomputeronline.com in the first week of March 2010.

Ghosh further added that the primary loss to the users who download these devious products is from $ 30 to $ 100. Regaining one's identity requires huge costs. Besides conning the user out of his wealth, these scareware also use the credit card details and personal information provided by them during the purchase to execute additional fraud or selling this information on the grey market forums causing identity thefts.

Finally, users must have complete know-how of cyber security to escape from such scams.

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» SPAMfighter News - 3/30/2010