Beware of Fake Antivirus Programs. 3 Quick Tips by E-Geniuses.
Could you tell the difference between your anti-virus program and malicious website attempting to install viruses into your computer?
Real (Windows Security Center)
Fake (Antivirus 2008)
Studies show that cybercrooks have a 3.4% success-rate infecting users’ computers. Chances are high that you will eventually come across an infected website. It would definitely be a good idea to make sure that you can spot the good security suites from the rogues.
Tip #1
The first thing you should do is find out which antivirus you are actually using. Remember the name of the program and what the application windows and interface look like. You should do the same for your antispyware and firewall applications as well. You will therefore be able recognize when a hacked site is attempting to lure you into a trap using scare tactics. Here’s an example of a rogue antivirus program using the scare tactic, “found infections, now buy me or else!”
Fake “Virus Detection”
Tip #2
Use Firefox and the Web of Trust addon. The main reason we recommend Firefox to our clients is because of the wide variety of addons available for it. When setting up a new computer, one of the first things I install is Firefox and the Web of Trust (WOT) addon. WOT shows you ratings for websites before you even click on them.
Let’s say you do a Google search for an anti-virus program. From my experience using WOT, I have found that at least one of the links on the page will receive a bad rating from WOT. Here’s one of the links WOT shows as having a poor reputation when searching for “anti-virus” in Google.
Notice the red warning circle next to the link.
What this means is that other WOT users have checked the site out and have found it to be unsafe. WOT even allows you to see other peoples’ comments about the site. You can rate sites and comment as well. In fact, the WOT community relies on users like you and I.
Here’s what you will see if you enter a site that WOT users have deemed as having a poor reputation.
Of course, websites are constantly being infected so there may be some newly infected sites that have not yet been detected by the WOT community. In these cases, you will need another layer of protection.
Tip #3
Malwarebytes, The Best Free Anti-Malware Program That You Really Should Buy.
Malwarebytes is a free program that has excellent detection rates. It is able to find and remove viruses, spyware and malware that many security suites cannot. It is maintained by a small group that regularly browses forums looking for infection trends and stopping them early. Like I said, the program does an excellent job of removing viruses, but for $24.95 for a lifetime subscription, the full version can actually prevent threats from infecting your computer. Prevention is really the key to safe browsing. (Buy Full Malwarebytes by Clicking Here.)
So lets just suppose you visit a website that was just infected a few hours ago. Since it has just been newly infected, the WOT community has not yet rated the site negatively in order to warn you. So you go to the site and a window comes up saying that your computer is being scanned for viruses and that it is infected with numerous trojan viruses. Assuming you didn’t follow Tip # 1 and cannot differentiate between the rogue anti-virus and your real anti-virus, you download the “fix”. Many times, I have found that Malwarebytes will actually block the download based on the IP address of the website. If it doesn’t, it will detect that the file you’ve downloaded is malicious once you try to install it. Malwarebytes will block these attempts by the virus to infect your computer.
Malwarebytes detecting and removing infections.
Summary
1) Familiarize yourself with your security programs and what they actually look like.
2) Use WOT, Web of Trust addon for Firefox so that you know whether links are safe or not.
3) Use Malwarebytes to prevent malware from infecting your PC.
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
August 19th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Fantastic article on how to avoid rogue software. It’s such a huge problem. In fact, PandaLabs recently reported that over the course of this year, there will be up to 637,000 variants of bogus security software available, infecting as many as 35 million computers each month!
We appreciate your recommendation of WOT and your ongoing support. The WOT community of over 5 million users is working together to make the Web a safer place by discovering and rating websites which are safe to visit and those that are risky. I hope everyone who reads this article will use WOT to make their browsing safer.
Safe surfing,
Deborah
Web of Trust