Fake Antivirus Targets Firefox

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
It’s just amazing how many ways there are that scammers can devise trying to fool the average internet surfer. What else is amazing is how close they come to pulling off the perfect scam except for attention to detail. This scam fails on a galactic scale. To all Phishermen: Please try and remember if you are going to use a browser specific ploy, target the correct browser. :D
 
Damn, that is a good one. Win updates for FF. Gotta get up pretty early to catch that one. ;)

People will fall for it. :(
 
Bring in the cash to work! These Virus's are sooo easy to remove and bring in easy money. FYI (Not a geek squad employee)
 
Glad I use Chrome! -_- Maybe they should invest their time in something more productive than trying to ruin peoples online experiences.
 
Hitmanthe3rd said:
Bring in the cash to work! These Virus's are sooo easy to remove and bring in easy money. FYI (Not a geek squad employee)
Click to expand...

yup they keep people like you and me making some money on the side (or maybe full time if that's what you do) but man they are hell for the 'average user'.
 
I got hit with this not long ago. It's pretty damn annoying. However, easy fix.

1. Boot into safe mode
2. Run Malwarebytes.
3. Restart
4. Profit
 
Blame developers of "legit" antivirus software. They are the ones that started using scare tactics to sell their software.. If the anti virus software doesn't constantly remind users that it's there and doing its job, people will feel less inclined to renew their subscriptions. That is why they come with big, bewildering "security control center"-type control panels and constant warnings and popups.
 
Had a customer that said they had a notification that their hard drive was failing. Come to find out it was just one of many of these malware's.

After I cleaned it I looked at the updates for the system. Only behind 168 total Windows XP updates. Thats pretty good
 
noscript FTW

Fools and their money are soon separated.

If we have spell-check tools for what we write, why not one that scans the current page for errors? It seems that none of the malware idiots have graduated high school. Maybe make a phishing filter that checked for Grammar errors.
 
If a browser is good it will garner market share, and if it gets enough market share it will become the target of malware. Hence the: "My browser is awesome it isn't the target of any malware is completely illigit."
Yet that same lame rashonale has been used to push OSX and Linux on us for years. And I suppose that for the people that use said arguement this is news. For the rest of us...
 
There would be only 1 thing to make it funnier: if the screenshot would be from a non-windows enviroment....you know, like Mac, GNU/Linux, Unix, Solaris....
I mean...."Windows Update will update your Ubuntu".....:)

Couldn't help myself.
 
I don't use the browser for windows updates anyway. That's why I like firefox script blocking.
 
Solidstate89 said:
I think the real crime here is they're still using Windows XP.
Click to expand...

The REAL crime is exactly what your post is: Ignorance. Any fully patched OS is just as vulnerable as the other if the user circumvents the OS's own protections or the malware uses a new exploit. Even just recently there was a variant of MacDefender that didn't need a password to install itself as a drive-by download.

That said, my netbook is still going on the same WinXP install for nearly 3 years now (only patched to SP2) ... No antivirus installed on it. Still clean as of last week when I used a portable AV scanner on my thumbdrive.

So even in cases where the system isn't as secure as it should be, the blame still lies upon the user in two ways: Keeping the system updated, or as I've been able to demonstrate with my own little unscientific test here... not blindly clicking and installing every window/piece of crap link you find.

Both points can be condensed into one: The user is the weakest link when it comes to security, regardless of the OS. Fake malware pages wouldn't be so prevalent if they didn't work so damned well.
 
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