Fraudsters sell million fake antiviruses and invent new type of fraud: scareware

The Federal Court of the United States banned the work of the large group fraudsters who cheated more than a million users, making them buy fake program to protect against malicious software. The fraudsters used unfair advertising and unsubstantiated claims on usersâ€™ computers containing illegal pornography.
The lawsuit (PDF) against the two companies of Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting Internet Services was filed by the USA Federal Trade Commission. The revealed fraud scheme is amazingly cynical. According to the lawsuit (PDF), one of the defendants, Kristy Ross from Maryland, has spent in 25 months, since October 2004, more than $3.3 million on advertising such products as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner and ErrorSafe. This gave her more than 680 million clicks on the net displaying banners MyGeek, recently renamed AdOn. Some banners said that a visitorâ€™s computer is infected, while others showed series of indecent images, saying that these images are located on a visitor's computer.
These fraudulent banners were displayed at most popular sites, including sites of NBA, National Hockey League, the magazine of The Economist, etcâ€¦
Eventually, the network MyGeek refused to show these banners, then the companies of Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting created several non-existent advertising agencies that placed false advertisements on their behalf.
Sites of the frauders welcomed users to immediately purchase programs protecting their computers from viruses and unintentional downloading pornography. The average purchase amount was about $40.
Prosecutors insist that the revenue derived from the companies of Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting, comes to several million dollars.
It turns out that unsuspecting visitors were accused of crimes they did not commit, or forced to believe that their computers were infected. The proposed products indeed were useless.
The actions of fraudsters have already been named â€œscarewareâ€. Commentators from the site of Spyware Sucks add that some individuals associated with the companies Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting, has already been prosecuted for distributing malicious software, including the claim by the company Symantec.