Rogue Anti-Virus, Greatest E-Threat to Canadian Computers

Security specialists have found that fake anti-virus is causing the greatest security threat to the Canadian computer operators and is providing Internet fraudsters a very effective way to earn revenues through their exploits.

They (security specialists) further explained that with rogue anti-virus applications called 'scareware,' scammers can extract user's credit card details. Moreover, such software provide a backdoor towards introducing additional malware into the target PC. Evidently, with victims divulging credit card details as well as downloading the applications, a direct passage is created for more malicious programs that get installed onto the infected PCs and which help to carry out identity theft.

It's found that this twin whammy computer assault is working very well and becoming increasingly trendy amid hackers in Canada.

Mohammad Akif, national security and privacy head with Missisauga, Ontario (Canada) based Microsoft Canada Inc., stated that the most prevalent e-threat facing computers in Canada was rogue security software. Itbusiness.ca published this on May 12, 2010.

States Microsoft that in Canada, the greatest danger to PCs is malware, accounting for over 73% of the total e-threats spotted on contaminated computers. Additionally, experts in Canada removed two most common scareware infections almost 230,000 times during H2-2009.

However, according to Microsoft, merely 3 in every 1,000 computers have become infected in Canada, an estimate that's far less than the global average of 7 in every 1,000 computers. Also, that's a rise since 18 months when the country suffered a contamination rate of 8 in every 1,000 computers.

Meanwhile, the security products of Microsoft Corp. cleaned scareware applications from 7.8 Million PCs globally during H2-2009. That was a 46.5% rise over the earlier half of 2009. Consequently, Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Vol. 8 highlights that cybercriminals are reaping better payoffs from scareware in comparison to other kinds of malware.

Hence, according to the security specialists, end-users must exercise special caution regarding scareware since such programs try to extract money from the public for fake software that claims to resolve certain problems that actually don't exist. They further urged that anyone receiving such pop-ups should do their best to ignore them, rather cancel them.

Related article: RSA Attendees Responsible for Wireless Vulnerability

» SPAMfighter News - 5/21/2010