Fear factor drives rogue security software

Posted on 8 Apr 2009 at 13:39

Reports about high profile worms and viruses have scared people into buying bogus security software. The growing fear of online threats has caused a recent spike in malware attacks, as unwitting users install rogue security applications that are themselves malicious, according to Microsoft.

In recent weeks security companies have constantly warned users of threats such as the Conficker worm. This has caused a sharp rise in the number of people looking for security programs online. Microsoft said it monitored "hundreds of millions" of PCs for its twice-yearly Security Intelligence Report and found that seven of the 25 top security threats came in the form of fake security programs.

The company said that in the second half of 2008 it cleared 4.4 million PCs of the most prevalent rogue security program, known as Win32/Renos. It warned that users should be very cautious about the software they install onto their PCs.

"I think it's important to understand what you're installing onto your PC and ensure that you only install antivirus software from a trusted source," said Vinny Gullotto, general manager at Microsoft's Malware Protection Center. "Be very aware of warnings that appear on your screen to tell you that your PC is infected and that you need to do something about it, because it's usually not true."

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota

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