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wildgarlic

Beware of fake anti-virus websites

Quote:
Experts are warning of an increase in the number of fake anti-virus websites.

Hackers are tricking people with a false warning, saying that the computer is infected with a Trojan and getting users to buy a fake anti-virus product.

A number of sites were closed last year when authorities in the US took action to stop sellers of "scareware".

But despite the closures, the number of sites continues to grow, with one expert saying it was "the biggest threat facing computer users today".


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IainC

Was going to say that there has almost always been these kicking about the 'net.
wildgarlic

Yeah I agree, but they are getting more and more convincing.
Smooth Hound

they dont half make things tricky

i was hearing yesterday that criminals are buying legit websites with good feed back, so they can get peoples details etc, and then take money out of your account, and steal your identity too
IainC

Smooth Hound wrote:
they dont half make things tricky

i was hearing yesterday that criminals are buying legit websites with good feed back, so they can get peoples details etc, and then take money out of your account, and steal your identity too


Not quite sure how that would work?

They would have to be buying sites that you are putting your credit card/bank details into. Can't think of many of these that would be online that wouldn't actually be more profitable to just carry on running as normal.

I have however heard of a couple of websites that have been setup, which are along the same lines as Amazon, etc, that seem to sell expensive things like high end gfx cards, guitars, etc that basically take your money and rarely (if ever) actually send you the item(s).

I was looking for something before, and as it was a limited edition, nowhere had it... eventually found it on one of those sites, but it was obvious there was something not quite right. For a start the items that the site sold didn't really fit together IYKWIM... and the price for it was less than it had originally been selling for, well with a ltd ed you'd expect the last of them to cost more too.

The name(s) keep changing though. Best bet when you are buying anything online, is to check out who/what the site is. Google their name, check the whois for the site, etc. Most of the scamming sites don't last too long due to people posting up stuff about them, but it's surprising how many people get caught out ordering from a fake website that's been known to be a fake place for ages.

Just 'cos the website looks fancy, doesn't make it any less of a shady/back door/off the back of a lorry type of place IYKWIM.
Bigman

Alot of the "antivirus" things I have found are free downloads, like antivirus 2009 which has alot of spyware attached and upon download proceeds to delete the legit antivirus you have installed. Nix's sons pc ended up with antivirus2009 and it took me a while to remove the masses of infected files before i could reconnect to the internet and download a legit virus scanner again......
Martin

Viruses, anti-virus? I remember those, they come with Windoze........
Worst one of the lot - "Norton" guaranteed to slow any "running through sludge anyway" Windoze installation to an utter crawl - lets anything remotely approaching a virus or trojan through, but bungs up loads of warnings for things that aren't (if it isn't demanding even more money to carry on doing the job appallingly badly).........
Thank the lord for Linux! (tries not to look TOO smug)
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