30 million users swallowed the bait of fake antiviruses

30th October 2008

According to the company Pandalabs, fake anti-virus software has been existing for quite a long time and the popularity of this form of fraud is increasing.
To date, there are more than 7 thousand of such programs, and, according to experts, more than 30 million of deceived users.
First, userâ€™s computer gets infected with the virus special through downloading infected programs from peer-to-peer networks through viruses in e-mail attachments or by visiting Web pages created by hackers. The virus creates an inconvenience for users, simulating â€œblue screens of deathâ€ and in one case, as reported Pandalabs, the desktop covered with crawling cockroaches. After a while, a dialog box appears, claiming that the machine is infected with the virus, and offering to buy â€œantivirusâ€.
Many Internet users are aware of the risk of transmitting personal and financial details to unknown people, however, about 3% of those people, according to Pandalabs, provide personal information to intruders pretending antivirus manufacturers. Letâ€™s count: if a package of such software costs, on average, â‚¬ 49,95 in Europe, we can assume that the creators of fake antivirus receive more than â‚¬10 million per month. And it should be taken into account that this figure does not include people who suffered heavy losses, sending numbers of their credit cards.