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Russian Firm Pays to Infect PCs with Adware

Posted by timothy on from the that's-pleasant dept.

Jaidev writes "Information week is reporting that a Russian site (IframeDollars) is paying web developers 6 cents for each machine they infect with spyware or adware. One security expert estimates that iframeDollars could collect as much as $75,000 annually from the adware it placed on the infected machines during the third week of May, which cost approximately $12,000 in payments to place"

5 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Everybody is satisfied! by MikeDX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    # Everyone is welcome to join the iframeDOLLARS.biz partnership program
    # Earn $0.055 ($55.00/1000 installs) and more for each unique iframe installs
    # You only put the short one line iframe code on your page(s) and start to MAKE MONEY
    # WITHOUT any Active-X console or any pop-ups...It means that you will not lose your unique visitors with our iframe!
    # The best percentage of installs (10-40% from the total traff or it's $4-$15 FOR 1000 UNIQUE VISITORS)
    # DAILY updated soft
    # We have 3 reliable servers with excellent speed
    # Payments every Tuesday
    # Real-time statictic of your work
    # Payment via: Fethard, Webmoney, Wire and E-gold
    # More than 150 webmasters work with us
    # Friendly support service
    # Everybody who works with us is satisfied.

    Does this "everybody" include the people whos pcs get infected with this shit? How long before this becomes more widely known or more common place... and will joe public do anything or care? no. The only chance we have is when the next windows "more money, better computer needed edition" comes out..

  2. The Real Question is... by kingofalaska · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The question I thought of is: how much will be paid for adware/spyware removal tools, and who will profit?

    I say this because just last week I helped a friend set up his new HP machine, and noticed that it came bundled with 30 day trials of Norton firewall/AV, some anti-adware, and some antispyware. I replaced all three with free/OS versions. But many users don't know about this, don't know where to get it, and don't know how to use them. In fact, removal of these 'trials' was a pain, even for me.

    KOA

    Anchorage, Alaska Will Host National Policy Meeting on Technology

  3. That's lowball.... by kawika · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The going rate for a US computer is more like 15 to 20 cents. Other countries go for as little as 1 or 2 cents. Cash4Toolbar is installing its stuff through some blogspot.com blogs (IE users beware) and some really cute social engineering, but several others are seeding infected files on BitTorrent.

  4. Honeypot browser by tgibbs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what we need is a "honeypot browser," that represents itself to a website as an old, unpatched copy of IE--but doesn't actually install the spyware. Then we could log in over and over, costing the spyware company money each time.

  5. Deal with the cause not the symptom by MarkByers · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It wouldn't work - even if you removed one company, others would appear.

    How about hitting stupid users over the head repeatedly until they click the 'install critical updates' button...

    Then impose heavy fines on the companies that create security-hole-ridden software and charge extortionate amounts to upgrade, despite that the software is a necessary component of most people's systems. They should be forced to provide free security patches for the entire lifetime of the product, or else a free upgrade to the next version.

    --
    I'll probably be modded down for this...