Fighting ‘Scareware’ One List at a time

Techworld has published an article that describes how the AV Vendors are compiling a Whitelist of AV Vendors who are really trying to keep there users safe and not trying to ‘[intlink id=”3805″ type=”post”]Scare[/intlink]’ the user into buying a rogue look a like.  They’ve published a Preliminary set of real Antivirus Softwares along with there Company:

CCSSParticpiation

As you can see there are at least to that are not listed.  I’ve contacted [intlink id=”3884″ type=”post”]SUPERAntiSpyware[/intlink] about this and they turned right around and started to ask to be added and should be Added in the coming months.   The other is [intlink id=”3851″ type=”post”]Malwarebytes[/intlink] and I am hoping they jump aboard and get in contact with this forum.

The Guys over at [intlink id=”3884″ type=”post”]SUPERAntiSpyware[/intlink] were really grateful that I came across this.   This list will soon help fight the [intlink id=”3918″ type=”post”]SCAREWARE Tactics[/intlink] of the Cyber Criminals.   Truth of the matter is educating oneself and doing a little bit of research can help you determine if the program or company is real or just another rogue company out there.   If your looking for some good Antivirus Software check out my [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Antivirus Page[/intlink] and see some of the FREE Antivirus Software out there that can help protect your system.

Another Scareware Adviser Site : browsersecurityinfo.com

It looks like “[intlink id=”3607″ type=”post”]Personal Antivirus[/intlink]” Scareware has [intlink id=”3872″ type=”post”]another Scareware adviser[/intlink] on the same iP: “83.133.123.113”

browsersecurityinfocom1

[ad]It is Hosted on “http://browsersecurityinfo.com/” and Does the same thing the [intlink id=”3872″ type=”post”]other Scareware Adviser[/intlink] does and sponsors “http://ieprotectionlist.com/1/”  Which is also [intlink id=”3607″ type=”post”]Personal Antivirus Scareware site[/intlink] that is host to a few dozen places on other sites.

These Sites try to look like legitimate sites and make you believe these are real but My Advise is that you [intlink id=”3884″ type=”post”]run SUPERAntiSpyware[/intlink] and Remove these scareware virus and other Trojans on your system.  These do nothing but slow your system down and stop you from using the system.  Some of these Fake Antiviruses have also been known to [intlink id=”3876″ type=”post”]not allow you to use real antivirus software[/intlink] so you may have to do it from safe mode.

If you need help removing these spyware manually you can check this article to remove it manually.   Please check out my [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Malware resources[/intlink] to better help you protect your system in the future.   I have a few recommendations on my [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Malware resources[/intlink] to help remove these viruses, trojans, and Malware off your system.

Why you can’t run Antivirus or Taskmanager!

Photo by : Kristi Evans Photo by : Kristi Evans

As you know there has been more and more virus writers and scammers who don’t want you to interfere with the ultimate plan.   You see the two major plans these people have are:

  1. [intlink id=”2811″ type=”post”]To use your computer as a Botnet[/intlink] —  This is most common because the Command and Control server is where they tell these other computers what to do weather send spam or do a denial of Service attack on a website.  Although this is the most common it isn’t however the easiest to get rid of rid.   Far be it from being easy these virus writers want to keep a foot hold on your system.   This is like the SG-1 the “Foothold” Situation, they try to look like there is nothing wrong.
  2. [intlink id=”3805″ type=”post”]Fake Antivirus software[/intlink] — This is the other common reason why you can’t load up Taskmanager or SUPERantispyware/Malwarebytes.   It could even prevent AVG,  Norton Antivirus, and Other Antivirus software from being loaded at boot up.  Because most Antivirus software can detect this type of scareware.   The scammers want to make as much money as they can so they don’t want the End user to be able to stop the program from scaring you into buying the fake product.  It could also have a [intlink id=”3872″ type=”post”]Scareware Adviser[/intlink] trying to get you to buy the fake product!

As you can see these are what I call the Prime “2” reasons why you can’t run your Antivirus software, although there is a way around this.   I have found loading up in Safe Mode to be the easiest way to run antivirus scans on an infected system.   Although this can be difficult to do it, however it helps prevent these programs from loading up in more ways then one.  If you can go download the Antivirus programs from another computer and have them to install once you load up in safe mode.   You should also think about installing other software like a [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Firewall even the Free firewalls[/intlink] are the better than Microsoft’s Firewall.

[ad]The other options for those tech savy people who know what a hard drive is and how to remove it, is to mount it onto another system as a slave and then run your antivirus software on the hard drive in question.   This however shouldn’t be done unless two conditions are met:

  1. You Know what you doing —  Again if you don’t know what your doing please don’t try this.  It could hurt your system far more than you can know.   If you don’t know how to do this you should take it to a professional and let them do the work for you.
  2. Out of Warranty — Yep that is right if this has a 2 year or longer warranty and you open up the hardware you automatically void the warranty on anything to do with your system.  So it is best to have someone who is qualified warranty specialist to open it up.  This way you still have your warranty on the system and if something does go wrong in the shop, they can fix it easier than a novice.

If you know what your doing this can be an easy process or it can be a hard process it only depends on how knowledgeable you are and how far you are willing to go.   Although there are [intlink id=”2955″ type=”post”]some viruses that require you to just start over[/intlink].  This is because they have embedded so deeplyinto the system that removing them will ruin your Windows system and prevent it from booting in the first place.  This is the last option, if you have a system who has been overrun with virus and spyware it might be time to reinstall the Operating system.  This is what I call the end all way to get rid of the Virus, Trojan, Or spyware on your system.   If you do this you will need to make sure to install all the Microsoft updates before you do anything else.  Also you will need to [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]re-install any Firewalls and Antivirus[/intlink] software to better protect your system from having the virus in the first place.