Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Fake AV - Phunny Fail


If you are in IT these days you likely see your fair share of fake/rogue antivirus malware, be it @ work or home (or your beloved Aunt Edna - you know the one who always forwards you the Nigerian 419 scam emails wanting to know when to expect the big payoff.)

Last week at work a co-worker received a drive-by 'gift' of goodness on his XP box. We use WSUS for the Microsoft patches and Symantec Endpoint Protection for client side I'net 'security'/AV and your mileage probably sucks as bad as ours. We're still trying to win the battle on Adobe / Apple patching, not there yet but moving along.

Anywho, this particular fake AV crapware does something really quite hilarious - it changes your desktop wallpaper to a FUD factor alarmist litany of bad things that can happen if you disregard the pleas of the badware to detach yourself from your hard earned $50 which will be guaranteed to do nothing but lead to someone spending more money (with your card number.)

If you believe the above warning - all those movies/MP3s you deleted are STILL THERE and "could break your life!" It is too bad the author's English was not up to par. Some days you just gotta laugh, 'cause the crying gets old after a while. And while I hate malware as much as the next guy, no one I know of has ever died from an infection.

Image courtesy of the Rogue Antispyware blog, a great resource for all the latest Fake AV news.

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