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Schneier On Scareware Vendor Lawsuits

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-what-about-the-car-warranty-robot-who-calls-every-day dept.

Bruce Schneier's blog says "This is good: Microsoft Corp. and the state of Washington this week filed lawsuits against a slew of 'scareware' purveyors, scam artists who use fake security alerts to frighten consumers into paying for worthless computer security software. "

7 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. colors by apodyopsis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm confused, I don't use windows, but surely somebody could just change the desktop colors and then when a warning alert turned up in the old colors they would know it was a scam?

    Is that too obvious?

    1. Re:colors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I had something similar happen to me when looking for DaemonTools - except it was the legit site itself that was riddled with adware and spyware! I was even using Firefox with Avast! installed. I believe it had used that PDF vulnerability that was discussed on here a bit ago.

  2. Re:Courts determining what's required for security by db32 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sounds like it could be used for Microsoft to take a swing at all of the legitimate anti-virus/scumware/etc apps for advertising how critical their software is because Windows has so many problems.

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  3. Re:FAKE security warnings, for Windows? by sjwest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you run a linux os with a modern web browser, and you visit a site with the scareware it is mildly amusing to see that your registry is screwed up and the site looks like internet explorer in colour scheme but you can download an exe to fix.

    Its happened twice to me, and i find them amusing.

    Im quite sure this is how windows zombies get signed up, but my penguin knows better.

  4. Re:FAKE security warnings, for Windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    last time i checked metasploit had at least double the attack vectors for linux than it did windows.

    so, i would say linux is less secure than windows.

  5. It's about time by jassa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm glad someone is finally taking action against these malware scammers. I do tech support part time and 95% of my recent virus removal jobs have involved these nasty little programs.

  6. Scaring consumers = basis of modern advertising by kaltkalt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Modern commercials rely on one of two things to sell a product or service. One, you will improve your chances of having sexual intercourse with a desireable mate if you purchase our product/service. Two, you are in danger and you need to purchase our product/service to be safe. Over the past couple of years the "scare" meme has turned into more of a direct threat. The best example is those horrible, evil free credit report dot com commercials, where they come out and say if you don't buy our product you'll lose all your money and have to work at a crappy seafood restaurant and drive a shit car (the fact that they're selling something is only to be discerned in the fine print at the bottom of the commercial and the last few words, quickly rattled off, at the end of the commercial). "Buy our product or be poor" is a threat. Auto insurance companies do this a lot too... I just saw an Allstate ad that showed a family losing all their money due to a car accident because they didn't have Allstate insurance. None of these threats is a legitimate concern for consumers. There's nothing different about saying consumers have a security problem on their computers and need to buy software to fix it. "Buy our product or hackers will destroy your computer and steal your private data." It should be illegal to threaten consumers. Such commercial speech should not be protected by the First Amendment.

    --

    Stupid people make stupid things profitable.