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FTC Cracks Down on "Scareware"

  • joebert
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Post December 11th, 2008, 5:26 am

An interesting article about the FTC cracking down on those advertisements that claim to scan your computer and find problems with it.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/36235

Quote:
The Federal Trade Commission today got a court to at least temporarily halt a massive "scareware" scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and pornography on consumers' computers.

According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress, the FTC stated.


I wonder how safe the details of the credit cards people who bought this crapware likely used are ?
I wouldn't be surprised if we heard about a credit card number theft ring related to this case in the near future.
Strong with this one, the sudo is.
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Post December 11th, 2008, 5:26 am

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Post December 11th, 2008, 6:59 am

Yay! Kick 'em in the balls! :twisted:
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Post December 11th, 2008, 7:09 pm

How many people here have come across these programs while surfing the net? I've seen almost all of them so it's no surprise they trapped so many people. Interesting article jb, thanks for sharing
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Post December 11th, 2008, 8:41 pm

Nice
helped me
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Post December 11th, 2008, 9:42 pm

mindfullsilence wrote:
How many people here have come across these programs while surfing the net? I've seen almost all of them so it's no surprise they trapped so many people. Interesting article jb, thanks for sharing

I have found quit a few... the only thing is... they were pop-ups saying that it found 12 viruses on my computer :roll:

I never did listen to them... because I only have 4 :lol: not 12.
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Post December 13th, 2008, 12:42 am

If I remember right, XP Antivirus is an alias of Antivirus 2009 :hmm: . If this is true, I'm still cleaning up from a three (possibly 4?) fold mess of this virus in nasty proportions. I hope they're jailed for life!!! :evil:

Edit: see taskmang.exe topic on this subject.
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Post December 13th, 2008, 1:01 pm

hmmm don't think I ever saw one of those... maybe because I've got pop-up-blockers on all my machines....? I've been sailing through the world in blissful ignorance........... :D
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Post December 13th, 2008, 9:30 pm

celandine wrote:
hmmm don't think I ever saw one of those... maybe because I've got pop-up-blockers on all my machines....? I've been sailing through the world in blissful ignorance........... :D

:lol: I used to get those before I got my popup-blocker
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Post December 15th, 2008, 4:08 am

celandine wrote:
hmmm don't think I ever saw one of those... maybe because I've got pop-up-blockers on all my machines....? I've been sailing through the world in blissful ignorance........... :D

Yeah, I remember those ... from the good old days ... hehehe. But my popup blocker also blocks everything these days ...
Let's leave all our *plum* where it is and go live in the jungle ...
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Post December 15th, 2008, 11:55 am

I have found a couple that get through popup blockers.

I have had countless people bring in slow computers, and sure enough there is crapware they spent money for because of popup.
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Post January 22nd, 2009, 10:00 pm

about time some one did something about it
you kown how many times my frinds cam to me saying they download somthing to scan there computer like(REGCURE,antispyware xp 2008) and finding out that they just lost$30.00 and all it did is telling him about fake virus while instaling
on the backround a dam trojan (prunnet,kernel32.exe). its *peach* up how some peopel fell for this.

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