Until about a year or so ago, virus writers wrote their nasty little programs to damage your computer or make Microsoft or some other organization look bad. Essentially, they wanted to see what they could get away with.
Now, however, your wallet is the target, as hackers deploy social engineering techniques to take your money and get your credit card information.
Some of you may have seen or been the victim of one of these scams, in which a dialog warning box pops up with a message that your machine is infected and that you need to "click here" to remove the viruses.
The click takes you to an order form to pay $29.95, $49.95, or some other amount to "register' or "upgrade" the software. The hackers figure that computer users will eventually grow weary of these pervasive messages, figure they must be legit, and follow through with the purchase.
If you are tricked by this scam, immediately contact your credit card company, because not only do the crooks have your money, they also have your credit card information. The payoffs are handsome. According to Finjan Malicious Code Research, approximately 12 percent of affected computer users actually install these fake antivirus programs.
These viruses come from infected web sites, including legitimate web sites that have been hacked.
So how do you protect yourself from these rogue programs with names like Internet Antivirus 2010, Antivirus XP, and a host of similar names?
First, if you go to a web site and get a warning box that your computer is infected (and it's not from your real anti-virus program), DON'T CLICK ANY PART OF THE WARNING BOX, including the red X or any cancel buttons. The virus writers have written their programs to trigger the virus no matter where you click on the warning box.
As soon as you see the warning box, press the ctrl-alt-del buttons simultaneously to bring up the Windows Task Manager. In the Task Manager, click the Applications tab. Under Applications, you should see a title that matches the title bar of the warning box. Click that title under the Applications tab to highlight it, and then click the End Task button. Click End Now on the next dialog box and that should prevent the virus from loading.
After exiting the Task Manager, update and run your antivirus software, along with MalwareBytes and SuperAntiSpyware, to make sure the virus didn't install.
For those that have AVG Anti-Virus, one way to reduce the risk of infection is to perform your web searches with Google. AVG quickly inspects all links that come up in Google searches for any known viruses. If there are none, you will see a green check mark next to the link.
If you have any questions about this or would like to have us install anti-virus or the MalwareBytes or SuperAntiSpyware programs (free for home users, $24.95 - $29.95 for business users), call us at 537-4198.
