Rogue antivirus products

Speaking of rouge, Federal Trade Commission are going after the Rouge Makers.

From sunbelt:

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to a massive “scareware” scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of those responsible for the scheme, to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants used an elaborate ruse that duped Internet advertising networks and popular Web sites into carrying their advertisements. The defendants falsely claimed that they were placing Internet advertisements on behalf of legitimate companies and organizations. But due to hidden programming code that the defendants inserted into the advertisements, consumers who visited Web sites where these ads were placed did not receive them. Instead, consumers received exploitive advertisements that took them to one of the defendants’ Web sites. These sites would then claim to scan the consumers’ computers for security and privacy issues. The “scans” would find a host of purported problems with the consumers’ computers and urge them to buy the defendants’ computer security products for $39.95 or more. However, the scans were entirely false.

According to the complaint, the two companies charged in the case – Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC – operate using a variety of aliases and maintain offices in various countries. Innovative Marketing is a company incorporated in Belize that maintains offices in Kiev, Ukraine. ByteHosting Internet Services is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Haha! Rouge Makers going down!

 

Revlon, Maybelline and L'oreal?

 

lol..

 

"Maybe it's Maybelline" (In girl voice) *Puts on hot girl mask" haha...

 

I'm not sure if this article from website 'TheRegister', 'Anatomy of a malware scam' by Jesper M. Johanssen, has been linked to earlier but it takes a rather in-depth look at XP Antivirus 2008.
I've found it especially usefull because of all the screenshots and the 'layman' terminology used, so it's easy to understand for family and friends how they or other folks might get duped into clicking/installing this kind of malware.

 

thanks
i read the whole thing and it is very useful

robin

 

they'll just move to somewhere where these ruling will hold no water:-like clone did re copyright legislation