Since the security companies and general computing public are now on the lookout for fake antivirus “scareware” that has been used by cybercriminals to infiltrate victims’ computers and steal personal data, cyber-criminals have decided to try some new ways to deceive people into installing and spreading their malicious code.
Security software development and malware research company GFI Labs has issued a warning that fake disk defragmenting utilities have begun circulating and spreading malware across the web since last month.
These defragger clones claim to have found “HDD read/write errors” on victims’ machines, and will not do anything to resolve the “issues” until the victim uses a credit card to purchase their “product”. In reality, the program does nothing except hand over credit card numbers and other personal data to thieves.
The fake products have been re-issued under several names to help them evade identification. Over the past month, the scanners have surfaced with names like Ultra Defragger, ScanDisk-Defragger, HDDRescue, and other similar variations.
To protect your computer against this new variation of scareware, the GFI Labs blog suggests avoiding any system utilities that:
-- is advertised by spam email
-- pops up dire warnings that your machine is affected my numerous problems (especially immediately after you click on a web page video to view it)
-- tells you that you need to update your browser (often listing a version earlier than the one you're running.)
-- demands that you make a purchase before it will clean or fix problems in your machine
Also, make sure that you always run a reputable, up-to-date antivirus program, though they may not catch brand-new variations of such malware.
My personal advice to help combat these continually evolving scam applications is to spread the word and educate your less technically-savvy friends and family of what to look for and how to avoid them. It’s too often that those people will fall prey to such scareware.
