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Major Rogue Anti-Virus Program Shut Down
krebsatwpost writes "TrafficConverter.biz, one of the more notorious pay-per-install affiliate programs, was dismantled this week after media attention caused Visa and Mastercard to shut down the group's payment operations. The action comes just a few days after a report by The Washington Post that showed some affiliates were making more than $100,000 USD a week installing rogue anti-virus software. The credit card industry may have been spurred by the fact that the first version of the Conficker worm told infected systems to download a file from TrafficConverter, although the story posits that this could have been an attempted Joe Job rather than a blatant attempt to drum up more installs."
$3,000/week isn't a big enough chunk of change to compensate for the damage to their corporate image that would result if it became widely known they were knowingly doing business with such an outfit.
Power does not corrupt - power attracts the corrupt.
That's nothing.
First that figure is from just ONE affiliate.
Then add in all the money they were making from chargebacks too.
Dual Opteron < $600
I wonder why this doesn't happen more often. The vast majority of online scams (fake drugs, etc.) and spammers get their money through credit cards. Why not more effort to cut off their source of funds? It seems like a weak point in the operations.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Yes. Because those thousands of people every year don't have the public impact that a news story does.
This has been going on for YEARS and the credit card companies NEVER took any action before now. Because the credit card companies were getting their share of the loot.
Now that the PR problem might be more costly than their share of the fraud, they take action.
While I'm glad these guys were shut down, Mastercard and Visa shouldn't have had to do it. This case constitutes outright fraud, and the perpetrators should be punished like other criminals: with handcuffs, a jury, and iron bars.
We used to have strong consumer protection agencies. Then something happened. How many more electronic Elixir Sulfanilamide incidents (or real ones for that matter) do we need before we re-create the strong and sensible regulatory bodies that used to protect us?
Unfortunately $100K/week isn't the full extent of the scam, it's just one slice of the money. The article only says that top affiliates made that much individually, and they only break down the Top 10 affiliates for 4 separate two-week periods (which adds up to almost $2M over that time). There is no mention of how many total affiliates there were or how much money they brought in as a group, but even the glimpse of the Top 10 makes it clear that it's much more than $100K/week when you add up the entire take.
The problem is that the laws and the penalties are too relaxed for crimes like these.
A more severe penalty for involvement in fraud crimes would make many more a lot more vigilant when it comes to strangling that kind of behavior.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Installing rogue software on thousands of PCs: Free.
Flying under the radar while you collect tons of cash: Free.
Realizing that all that money isn't going to keep your posterior from being repeatedly violated in prison: Priceless.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I'm surprised visa/MC actually shut them down. 3% of 100k/week is a decent chunk of change.
Most of that 3% goes to the acquiring bank, rather than the payment system (Visa/MC).
Make a bet? Decent lawyers can keep you out of jail for _years_, and even help you avoid extradition, or help keep you in a milder white collar prison where you are far less likely to discover what needing real virus protection is like.
I guess we'll hear right-wing radio decrying this as yet one more example of government interference stifling innovation in the marketplace.
Apologies, but I couldn't resist.
I guess I'll hear Leftist radio .... nevermind.
No one that can drive listens to left wing radicals.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Traffic Converter have a note on their site www.trafficconverter2.biz:
On March 18th, in the evening, with no warnings, the German Merchant Processing was cut off. Merchant was at the bank personally (without intermediaries), proved and with the arrangements on the highest level. Up until now the bank was not replying to our inquiries, but finally we received answers from them your Merchant was blocked and the account frozen until the determination of the facts. According to unofficial channels, we have been able to ascertain the following:
"I am sorry to inform you that both VISA and MC have done a surprise on site visit at the offices in Frankfurt. They are actually there as we speak.
They have instructed WC to freeze your account until further notice and both of these companies have different reasons for doing so:
VISA; they want to investigate where all the volume comes from.
MC; High CB`s the past few days."
This is absolutely unprecedented case when two of the largest payment system called the requirement to block the Merchant. We also have a reason to believe that the situation was caused by the recent publication about us and our products in Washington Post:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/
There are, as you can see, some very serious accusations. Including the relation to Conficker, which we actually are not implicated with (and can prove it if necessary).
As a result of this situation:
- No money to pay;
- No capacity to process products (not because we're not working, but because this volume is not endure any processor)
- There is a chance to get ourselves under prosecution and let down Webmasters.
So, the decision was made to âefault and shut down the Traffic Converter. In case we resolve this issue and manage to refund the money from the bank, we will pay you off all debts as quickly as possible.
If we manage to get the stable traffic conversions we have demonstrated during the year and a half, we will contact you on individual basis.
Thanks to everyone for succesful business cooperation.
I.O.U One Sig.