It’s seems like every virus produces a list of capitalistic charlatans. During the Bubonic plague, thousands spent their hard earned savings on worthless talismans in the hopes of avoiding the Black Death. The song “Ring Around the Rosy” even documents the myth that a “pocket full of posies” could ward off the disease. Today’s modern day talisman comes in the form of a fake anti-virus software. According to John Leyden’s recent Register article, fake software is being peddled to users who believe their systems are infected with the Facebook Fan Check Virus.
It’s unclear as to whether or not the Facebook Fan Check Virus actually exists. It’s entirely possible that concerned forum members are simply laying the bait for malware scams. Only one thing is certain, sites claiming to protect against the virus are being used to trick users into offering up their credit card information.
Says Sophos’ Senior Technology Consultant Graham Cluely in a blog post, “The bogus warnings look near identical to previous fake anti-virus software attacks that we have seen in the past – with a scrolling green progress bar and a list of alleged threats found on your computer displayed in a dramatic red colour scrolling up.”
Phishers are designing site pop ups that mimic system anti-virus warnings in order to lure users into giving up personal information and in some cases, downloading malware. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group more than 9000 scareware packages have been in circulation since late 2008.
For a list of some of these potential issues, check out ReadWriteWeb’s Top Online Security Threats for 2009 or visit the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team site for industry updates.
