Scareware slingers flaunt fake MS endorsement.

Scareware wronguns have developed a neat but evil piece of coding trickery designed to dupe prospective marks into believing that Microsoft is endorsing their worthless scamware.

A rogue anti-malware product called DefenceLab redirects infected PCs to Microsoft’s Support portal, but modifies the HTML content as it
returns so as to appear as if Microsoft is endorsing the worthless software. The ploy, which follows a fake scan and bogus Windows Security Center alert, is designed to persuade Windows users already exposed to infection by agents of the scareware package to pay for a full version of the supposed clean-up utility.

Surfers visiting the URL on the Windows Support site referenced in the scareware from a clean PC will get a 404 ‘page not found’ message. Hacked PC victims will see an apparent endorsement. Screenshots of the attack in action can be found in a blog post by anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software, which was the first to warn of the threat.

More.............http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/10/scareware_fake_ms_endorsement/

If people learned about the web, and safe browsing habits, before grasping the mouse and connecting to a router - well, there would be far fewer victims...

Better still, if folks made sure they had drive images backed up...

True, but a newbie, know nothing about backups or imaging,

scareware is gettin pretty darn good these days... so are hackers. One of our computers is no longer "genuine". Just happened to one of my friends too. Seems to be an XP thing.

some info on ours... we had a hard drive fail on our HP... sure enough, the restore hdd also toasted in the storm. Best Buy or HP agreed to fix it/replace the hard drives, but supposedly the software isn't valid for the "region". Doesn't make sense cuz it passed genuine over and over and over during all the updates... and then one day it says we need a new copy of xp mce.

In most parts of the world you don't get to drive a car until you've earned a licence, cos' it'd endanger you and others... so I endlessly find myself wondering why novice computer users let themselves loose at the controls, on the net, without first doing any of 'the learning' about 'how to be a little bit savvy...'

Scareware, or Suckerware? I'd argue the latter term is more truthful...

reghakr said:

Scareware wronguns have developed a neat but evil piece of coding trickery designed to dupe prospective marks into believing that Microsoft is endorsing their worthless scamware.

A rogue anti-malware product called DefenceLab redirects infected PCs to Microsoft’s Support portal, but modifies the HTML content as it
returns so as to appear as if Microsoft is endorsing the worthless software. The ploy, which follows a fake scan and bogus Windows Security Center alert, is designed to persuade Windows users already exposed to infection by agents of the scareware package to pay for a full version of the supposed clean-up utility.

Surfers visiting the URL on the Windows Support site referenced in the scareware from a clean PC will get a 404 ‘page not found’ message. Hacked PC victims will see an apparent endorsement. Screenshots of the attack in action can be found in a blog post by anti-spyware firm Sunbelt Software, which was the first to warn of the threat.

More.............http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/10/scareware_fake_ms_endorsement/

I never trust something all random like that. Besides, I only install good and famed software I do know. And I would Sandboxie everything first before I left it out on the computer.

I downland and install of programs.If you gave a good anti-virus softwares n spyware detector an persoalfirewakk,there's;s not much to witty about.

These posts are mainly objected towerds people in corporations nd companies,where the y din;y understand the risk involved,\\Hoed that get on my computer,I do;y know I used to work for a large software Manya nd thy how it frequently occurs,

They shouldbe locked down more securly.\\Sotrry abut he yoing,my keybod is going out ther wundiws.

VB 5 runrimes:\

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

VB6 runrimes:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

reghakr said:

They shouldbe locked down more securly.\\Sotrry abut he yoing,my keybod is going out ther wundiws.

Geezus, I'll have one of whatever you're drinking!

Going back O/T there's not a lot you can do to protect people from themselves when they want to use a computer and the internet without the least idea about the sorts of dangers and risks that they may encounter...