They're the scourge of the Internet right now and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says they've also raked in more than $150 million for scammers. Security experts call them rogue antivirus programs.
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center issued a warning over this fake antivirus software Friday, saying that Web surfers should be wary of sudden pop-up windows that report security problems on their computers.
This software can appear almost anywhere on the Web. Typically, the scam starts with an aggressive pop-up advertisement that looks like some sort of virus scan. Often it's nearly impossible to get rid of the pop-up windows. Of course, the scan turns up problems, and the pop-up windows say the only way to get rid of them is to pull out a credit card and pay.
More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9142160/
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center issued a warning over this fake antivirus software Friday, saying that Web surfers should be wary of sudden pop-up windows that report security problems on their computers.
This software can appear almost anywhere on the Web. Typically, the scam starts with an aggressive pop-up advertisement that looks like some sort of virus scan. Often it's nearly impossible to get rid of the pop-up windows. Of course, the scan turns up problems, and the pop-up windows say the only way to get rid of them is to pull out a credit card and pay.
More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9142160/
