PSA: Read this. Seriously.

[peppermintesse]

Anatomy of a Malware Scam

XP Antivirus, in this case, not a virus as such, but an insidious lookalike 'scareware' with convincing-looking 'scans' and warnings (and even a fairly authentic looking Windows Security Center, save the grammar errors), designed to get you to hand over your credit card information.

The article is a real eye-opener; the author installed it into a virtual machine, so he includes screenshots.

Comments

[trexphile.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I wonder if Dawnie ever fell for one of these. It wouldn't surprise me.

I should make sure Sassy knows about this -- Alex uses her laptop a lot, and although she would know better, he might not.

Thanks for the info!!

[shiningmoon.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome--I think I have my dad trained better than this, but I'm going to send him this link too.

I haven't actually taken any cases involving this particular kind of malware myself, but I hear it's awful to try to get rid of it from your computer. :P

Yip

[dinda.livejournal.com]

This was the one that was on my sister's computer and it was a royal PITA to get rid of. Ended up resetting the computer to defaults and then was finally able to get Norton installed and running. Still had to log into every account and run it on each and also had to reset everything like where iTunes library were and such. Their next computer will be a Mac or Dell with Ubuntu.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Look, I am matching your mood icon!

[shiningmoon.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I thought of you when I picked it, actually!

[http://users.livejournal.com/makaze_/]

I didn't get a chance to read this post until today and funny enough this is the exact just I'm cleaning off of my friend's computer right now.