Rogue malware is money spinner for scammers

Ever wondered how much money rogue antivirus scammers have made off with? Well, the FBI has the answer: A whopping $150 million. That's the FBI's estimates of the loss caused by these "scareware" to victims anyway; small wonder why such scams continue to exist.

Anyway, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has posted a fresh warning that paying for software that claims to have detected a virus or malware while surfing the Internet is never a good idea. On top of the financial loss for purchasing a bogus product, the "product" itself could also "result in viruses, Trojans and/or keyloggers being installed on the user's computer." Additional costs could also stem from potential identity theft as well as computer repair.

The following recommendation by IC3 makes sense to me: "If a user receives these anti-virus pop-ups, it is recommended to close the browser or shut the system down. It is suggested that the user run a full, anti-virus scan whenever the computer is turned back on." And yes, the fastest way to close a browser (or any application for that matter) on a Windows PC would be to use the "ALT-F4" shortcut key.

I wrote about this scourge earlier this year, though the problem doesn't appear to have abated since. As such, it makes sense to preempt colleagues and family members of such scams lest they fall for them.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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