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UK PC Users Hit By Huge Fake Antivirus Attack
An anonymous reader writes "UK Internet users were on the receiving end of a large drive-by web attack at the end of February, which attempted to push fake antivirus at least 750,000 times on a single day alone, security company AVG has said. According to a company analysis, on Sunday 27 February, detection levels for the previously obscure Russian 'Blackhole' exploit kit suddenly spiked to 900,000 globally from a few tens of thousands that would be typical for such kits, before dropping back again. Unusually, almost 750,000 of these detections were for UK PCs, which offers a baseline for what must have been a sustained attack several times that size against mainstream web servers frequented by users in the country."
What the hell are you talking about? 99.9% of the viruses affect Windows and only Windows, which, correct me if I'm wrong, last time I checked was LESS open than OS X. And if you want a totally safe, totally open OS, go with Linux. Your post contains lots of words but about 0 actual content.
Monstar L
I wonder, are the Mac users protected by their stupidity from fake anti-virus software. Were they thinking along the lines of a Certain XKCD comic but with Mac OS in place of liniux.
No mention of the Malware attacks named "McAfee" and "Symantec."
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I like to fiddle with computers as much as anyone else, but oddly enjoy having an iPhone that just does and is locked down. So perhaps the way forward is to ship products that are, by default, locked up tighter than an iPhone but with the option to incrementally relax restrictions. This way the average user who couldn't care less about what is going on under the hood and is susceptible to drive-by attacks is fairly safe. But then those who would like to fiddle and are probably a lot more security conscious have the freedom they need. I also think that continual updates don't help much. The average user does just want a machine that they can use to browse the internet, type the odd letter, and so on. Continually pushing new versions of this and that gets them into the habit of updating and installing stuff they don't understand. It might be better to encourage these people to take their machine in for a regular service to someone who knows what they are doing, same as a car.
No OS is totally safe. Much of the safety of linux comes from its small market share and because the people that run linux are often more security conscientious than those that run other operating systems.
I have had to remove several viruses lately. It wasn't by "drive-by web attack", it happened by people getting phone calls or letters through the post, some were even sent CDs and told to install the "AV software". Quite odd, but I have fixed several PCs where people have followed the 'advice' given to them.
I know I have several others to fix because they received phone calls pretending to be their ISP for example.
they live in the shadows, & on the media now. some have been identified. eugenatics (vaccines, caste system), weapons peddlers, ga stone freemasons (4.billion too many of US?), kings (inbred/altered)/minions(politics/military), fake weather cos., adrians, rothschilds, turners, cheneys, it goes on&on.
More and more people will be attracted to the Apple closed garden model.
Only the non creative types who don't care or want to know how computers actually work. Oh wait - fancy that - PC users will end up developing the software for the Mac sheeple that just want to doodle in paintshop all day while telling everyone how wonderful their expensive Macs are. The problem with the closed garden is that it's a closed garden. That's all well and good if you have no idea what a computer is. But if you want to innovate and write, say, the NEXT closed garden, you cannot do that while constrained by artificial limits.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you take your meds it stops going on and on.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It only cost me $25.00 and seems to be finding all kinds of stuff and it's tells me it's working well!
Is there a future for open platforms, and what can the FOSS community do to keep them both 1) open and 2) safe?
1) It already is open, so nothing to fix there. I don't run any time wasting virus scanner processes in the background, as I don't need any virus scanner on Linux, not because it more secure, but because I download my apps from an official Ubuntu repository, not random webpages found on the Internet. That doesn't stop bad things from happening, but if they happen that way its unlikely that any other local measurement would have prevented them.
2) Safe is relatively easy in theory, put every single application into a chroot()-alike and don't grand them full system access. The few cases where an application needs access (like files) can be handled in a secure manner without to much problem. In practice of course its not that easy, as nobody seems to be willing to take the first step and security is as always threated as an afterthought, not a core design feature.
The thing that provides hope and might be the reason to go "Safe" one day is that "Safe" isn't an opposite of "Open", they go hand in hand. A system where a single application can't destroy the system, is a system where I can run whatever I want from whoever I want. Its a system that provides the user with the most possible freedom. An unsecure system on the other side doesn't allow you to run anything you don't trust, thus drastically limiting your choices.
Apple OS X is less secure than Windows. More people use PC computers, more people use Windows, so obviously, people will write viruses and malware FOR them, and thus, Anti-Viruses and protection is made to keep up with it. No one really attacks OS X, and thus, Apple likes to be gleeful in saying its secure when it fact, it's not. Not at all.
Well that is just simply untrue.
The whole Linux system has been designed to be anti-processing. In the sense that it will try to murder you and burn down your house if you want to get a program running.
God forbid what happens to the poor guys who try to run programs remotely. They go to a whole new level of Hell.
And if you want a totally safe, totally open OS...
...then you're shit out of luck because there's no such thing.
It might be better to encourage these people to take their machine in for a regular service to someone who knows what they are doing, same as a car.
It would be better just to do silent updates. Many people don't take their car for regular servicing, and even if they waited a couple of days, their machine could be pwned by then, credit card/banking info stolen, etc..
which is totally what she said
I own a small PC repair shop here in the UK and we had about 20 PCs in during a two week period with this malware. After that most AV software was detecting it and automatically removing it. It wasn't terribly virulent and booting into safe-mode was enough to prevent it running.
Used them, uninstalled them & even had to google search "how do i completely remove norton." They might as well be fakes themselves and what alarms me most is the number of noobs & businesses who use their product and think they are protected.
Anyway, question: Who manages or creates those links you get when you search for "top 10 antivirus" or "best antivirus 2010?"
Just offer them a preview of the next iPhone or whatever, the stupid ones will run that.
which is totally what she said
God forbid what happens to the poor guys who try to run programs remotely. They go to a whole new level of Hell.
Yeah, because Windows runs ssh right out of the box....oh wait....
Monstar L
well portrayed by the well owned media as such. what he writes about, is much of what we're seeing, if we look. eisenhower & kennedy had similar views. one of kennedy's last speeches was a 'we're coming for you' aimed at the banking industry. his brother had similar aspirations, & demise. so long ago.
Most people never asked to have a computer. They just want their emails, facebook, youtube and video games. They will be happy with their iPhone iPad, etc...
I long for the time where computers will become a nerd-only item again. Then, maybe, governments will stop making silly laws about silesharing, reverse engineering and DMCAs and will just force Apple or Google to put his or that limitation in their sandboxed mobile operating systems.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I've spent the past month clearing up the fall out of this explosion of Fake AV... It's the most common issue I see on computer in my repair shop these days, and has been for a few years now, but this confirms why it's been so hectic the past couple of weeks!
I am amused that AVG are going on about it when, like the rest of the mainstream antivirus products, AVG itself cannot prevent or remove these Fake AVs- by the time the user brings their computer to me, AVG, or any other antivirus is broken and crying in the corner of C:\Program Files, or just gone completely.
I think what people here are getting at is not IF something can be done (it obviously can), but whether "The Bad Guys", actually are willing to go through the effort to do it. It's a simple business choice:
1) You try exploiting a system that has MANY documented holes and that its users are more than likely less security conscientious than other tighter systems; ergo, unlikely to cancel credit cards in time or change passwords.
2) You try exploiting a system where it's generally harder to implement a successful exploit and where its users are more likely to reset their security in a blink of an eye if they smell foul play.
Hint: "The Bad Guys" are lazy by nature...
"I'm taking this loop off." - Jack O'Neill
They largely are. These offers of protection tend to download .EXE's since these fake antivirus companies don't waste time on anything that's non-Windows. In addition, a large majority of Mac users don't bother with Antivirus so they simply ignore these. Last but not least, they tend to be less gullible than Windows users.
http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-software/networking/news/218521
http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/10/microsoft-users-gullible-advertising/
Last but not least, these types of attacks tend to be fear driven and Windows users simply have more to fear from Viruses than Mac users at the moment. After years of sustained attacks, they are simply much to jumpy and easily frightened to pass up.
Non-creative types? What shit is this?
Are you really suggesting that creative types, by definition, will want to take their PC's apart? Really?
Had a typical midwesterner conversation this morning in college. It wasn't over exactly this antivirus fakeout, but it led up to the flaws behind the antivirus system, namely the symbiotic relationship between virus/antivirus. But the reason the antivirus companies make so much money, and the reason why fake virus attacks work, and so on, is because people are educated from the wrong directions.
This morning, after somebody realised I was a computer programmer they asked if I could hack into computer systems. Once we got past my incredulous phase where I can't believe somebody would ask something like that out in the open in front of other people, it came down to, "no, I can't, or if I can I don't want to".
Do you walk up to people and say "could you jack a car?" "Could you murder somebody?" Just right out in the open, not even meeting them? Try it out like this: do you tell them, "yeah, oh yeah!" You know how much federal time that is, right out the gate? By the time you affirm something like that, it's not the other person's liable time, either, it's yours. Even if it's also illegal to ask in the first place, seeking to conspire over these things and soliciting such skill through such a line of questioning.
But if it's computer hacking, well everybody feels that's a great thing. Everybody wants to know a hacker, see a hack going on. This is why it's very lucrative to make games where a person believes they are hacking a computer system, but never to make it very complex: they wouldn't know a hack if they were one, but they love the idea of trumping all this new-fangled computer nonsense that puts knots in their brains and makes them feel inferior. Oh, if only they could hack the machine and get it out of the damn way and just get down to brass tacks and business.
So I had to weather wave after wave of this guy begging for the reality of the grey-hat market. That maybe it's okay to commit computer crimes because if you get caught, you won't go to jail, the NSA will show up with the men in black and hire you into the upper, upper, uppity echelon of secret dream, top-level, wish fulfillment and instant gratification the real world won't let you have.
He promoted himself as some kind of brilliant business person, because he's spending money to go to college for business. He didn't even know to bring cash with him to do the printing he needed for this uppity business class trip of his, and wasn't independent minded enough to put it together on his own. I explained to him how to put the scanner and the printer together through the computer and pay for it off his printing account instead. I didn't even get a thanks, just a frankly indifferent, self-scolded, urban-culture "yeah that'll work that's cool".
So, when he got on me about where's all the grey hat money money, I told him, it's not supposed to be like that. The systems should be installed properly and used properly the first time. You don't go around giving your housekey away to strangers all in order to sustain the police records filing level industry, do you? You keep your shit secure because you want it. You do that because that's what your instincts want, is security. That's exactly what an employer is thinking, too. They aren't saying, hey, I want holes in my security to hire a grey-hat, so I'm going to go buy a security system, have it installed properly, and then have a mad hatter at the front desk surfing the web from an admin level unpatched windows desktop and taking bathroom breaks with the system password post-it noted over the keyboard numerical pad. That way I can hire a cool-sounded thing, like, the rugged individualist down on his luck who got caught stealing my wife's credit card number and now has been hand-picked by the NSA to come to me to charge me twice for my security: once to point out how I screwed it up and again to install the whole new system.
When I put it to him like that, he said, well, ha-ha, it's obvious you don't know biz-niss. I explained as well as I could that, in fact, he doesn't know bu
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Hey, the headline forgot to include, "Mac Users Unaffected" :)
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
I can almost answer my own question. I've run into too many people who don't WANT to know anything about their computers. Sort of like that old Barbie "Girls aren't good at math" thing, except it's "I'm not a computer person so I'm not GOOD at computers" and they're doing it to themselves. My gut does tell me that this is worse with older people, but not 100%.
I disagree, computers are more fun and lower-maintenance than ever!
I might be saying that because all my devices except my gaming PC run Linux*
*well actually my gaming PC dual-boots, but I rarely use the Linux install for anything. Turn on, play games, turn off...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Yeah, because Windows runs ssh right out of the box
Of course it does:
Or did you mean run ssh as a server? In that case, Windows has RDP.
There's been a spike in the US too. We've seen more of those type of repairs recently.
And I want to like AVG, but their program can't fix it. :(
Effigy? Why, Lord Inglip, if you insist...
They just want their emails, facebook, youtube and video games.
Until they learn about a video game or other work that their walled garden of choice rejected.
I long for the time where computers will become a nerd-only item again.
Then the economies of scale will disappear, and nerds won't be able to afford a computer.
I like to fiddle with computers as much as anyone else, but oddly enjoy having an iPhone that just does and is locked down. So perhaps the way forward is to ship products that are, by default, locked up tighter than an iPhone but with the option to incrementally relax restrictions. This way the average user who couldn't care less about what is going on under the hood and is susceptible to drive-by attacks is fairly safe. But then those who would like to fiddle and are probably a lot more security conscious have the freedom they need.
That's much like Andriod behaves together with the Google store. The Google store provides the safety catch and you can get around that if you want to. A difference is that it does not rely on code inspection, so there is more chance of bad programs getting through. It also does not protect as much against programs that are just badly designed or are careless regarding security/privacy. The access conditions make sure that applications cannot just access any API even if you use another store or direct download. E.g. a game would require me to allow it to use phone functions.
I also think that continual updates don't help much. The average user does just want a machine that they can use to browse the internet, type the odd letter, and so on. Continually pushing new versions of this and that gets them into the habit of updating and installing stuff they don't understand. It might be better to encourage these people to take their machine in for a regular service to someone who knows what they are doing, same as a car.
I'm sorry, but that's a very bad idea. Even applications that are not susceptible to buffer overflows and other low level memory management related attacks are vulnerable to other kinds of attacks. If I would have a banking application on my mobile, I would like to make sure that it is up to date. Hey, maybe there is a bug in the SSL handling where they allow third party certs to be accepted.
The trick is to let the OS handle the updates, and make applications resistant against these updates. Again, with Android you get continuous messages that your application update won't harm your user data (and configuration, most of the time). That said, Android 2.1 has only been given auto-update functionality some time ago, and users need to activate it themselves. It would be a good idea to make that a access condition/setting as well for security relevant applications.
The problem with updates is that many people associate it with the (old) windows way of doing updates. Some kind of application specific updater (within the app itself or as a service/tray icon) indicates that there is an update. The user then has to go through X steps for the update to take place, shutting down all the required applications. Then the user may even be asked to do a restart, and should pray that the update went successfully. It's just so stupid if you have an operating system that does not even reliably let you manage your applications, it's just beyond belief.
The whole Linux system has been designed to be anti-processing. In the sense that it will try to murder you and burn down your house if you want to get a program running.
You're thinking of ReiserFS. Also it won't murder you or burn down your house, but it may murder your wife.
...there is a huge difference.
Does it seem to anyone else that the background tasks (like preventing malware) you have to perform in order to use computers have increased to the level where computers aren't fun any more?
Computers have always been un-fun when they don't work. Right now my fancy low-power nVidia card is locking up on me during heavy use... but only in Windows, not in Linux. Hilarious. Trying a beta driver that says nothing about my problem now, because nVidia often fixes problems with nary a mention in the release notes... just like everyone else.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've not saw it reported elsewhere, but a lot of people who got this fake AV (it was "system tools"), seemed to get it in drive-by-fashion from ebay.
write, say, the NEXT closed garden, you cannot do that while constrained by artificial limits.
Knock yourself out: XCode
No easier, or harder, with gcc or Visual Studio - well, Visual Studio does have the annoying multi-tiered pay for your software model, that's a bit of a time sink, but otherwise, all are competent tools.
No OS is totally safe, but the safety of linux comes mainly from a more robust design than windows. A linux user does not have administrator privileges. Windows can be run that way, but it doesn't work too well. E-mail viruses is a windows-specific thing, because only microsoft was stupid enough to make a mail client that executes attatchments - or a word processor scripting language capable of replacing system files.
Hackers have plenty of reason to attack linux - if they could. Quite a few internet servers with excellent high-speed connections are running linux. Just what an illegal hacker wants. Still they struggle.
It also helps that most Windows computers are used by people who have little idea of how a computer works or good security practice. This can't be held entirely to blame - after all, OSX is targetted at users with a similar level of knowledge - but it does go a long way towards explaining why linux is so much more secure.
All those "creative types" running Linux on the desktop... Is this a joke? What exactly is "creative" about the Linux desktop? Gnome is about on par with Windows 98 and KDE basically committed suicide with version 4. So creative!
I've read your post twice. I'm still not sure what it was that you said.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Linux has long had the "repo" concept. It's like a cross between the "Windows way" and the app store you see on mobile. I think it's ideal!
1) There's no gatekeeper. Anybody can build a repo, and customers can choose what repos they want.
2) Everything is cryptographically verified, so security is strong.
3) You have just one place in your computer to do updates, so you aren't barraged by a raft of "OMG U R UPDATEZ!" when you boot up a computer that's been sitting for a while, like you do on Windows.
4) Updates can occur in the background. For me, it's a small KDE Icon that alerts me to the process. I can continue working while it's happening. If I need to reboot, I don't have to do it right away.
I think MS really blew it with their Windows Update, because it requires end users to reboot multiple times, and it doesn't handle application updates, just Windows.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
These plebs should install Linux and be totally free! Then they won't be burdened by choosing video games! TuxRacer it is!
These plebs should install Linux and be totally free!
I'm not trying to imply that end users need to go all the way and install GNU/Linux on a PC or buy a GNU/Linux based phone or PDA such as the N900 or Pandora. But at least they should buy devices with the option of turning on the equivalent of Android's "Settings > Applications > Unknown sources". Ask anybody who had an idea for a PS3, Wii, or home theater PC game but had to retool it for Xbox 360 (with all its flaws) because PS3 and Wii have no indie developer program and HTPC penetration is next to nil. Or ask Bob Pelloni, who anybody who had an idea for a DS, PSP, or GP2X game but had to retool it for iOS and Android because DS and PSP have no indie developer program and GP2X penetration is next to nil.
TuxRacer it is!
You know, there is a middle ground between video games released as free software or freeware and video games developed by an established company with an office and employees who have years of experience working for an incumbent video game developer. It's just that certain walled gardens make it difficult to jump that gap without moving hundreds of miles away to another state.
I don't give credence to anything AVG says, since I caught its version 9.0 product red-handed denying me the ability to format any of my disk drives so long as it was installed. It maintained continually open files/folders on every drive, such that Windows would refuse to allow formatting any of them, and not just the boot drive. I uninstalled it and never looked back. The day an AV product denies me the ability to use a fundamental feature of the operating system is the day that product gets the boot.
Unfortunately, developers will immediately require people to disable all those security features. People will say Yes to anything if it makes the messages go away.
When a game demands admin access and requires me to restart my computer after installation, the first thing I ask is, "why?" I don't run those kinds of games on my work computer, knowing full well why a stupid game wants total, unrestricted control over my system. I'd rather buy software that "just works."
That's a very broad definition of "out of the box".
So it appears by "out of the box" you mean "preinstalled". But the last time Microsoft included a lot of preinstalled software, it got slapped down in U.S. antitrust court.
I think a lot of people would disagree that Mac users are "less gullible" than windows users. Considering Apple is lauded for being "such a good marketing company that can get people to pay significantly more for a product that the competition charges a bit less and also provides more features" would actually scream to me that "apple buyers are more gullible".
Not trying to say my "fact" is more truthy than yours but hopefully you see the problem with that statement now that is supported by bad statistics from that fanboi article you link to (for example, how about "making ads look like windows pop-ups are more effective than making them look like apple pop-ups").
This happened to my sister, who isn't really a dumb person. After talking with her I've come to establish the profile of an individual that would fall for these kinds of attack:
1. They are very trusting of something when they do trust it. This behavior is often associated with people who do well at school and follow their parents advice/beliefs
2. They don't use their computer much anymore, mainly relying on their phone instead
3. They own a computer that came pre-installed with an antivirus brand they don't recognize, so all they know about is that they wouldn't recognize it if it gave them a pop-up
4. Their anti-virus is expired and they falsely believe an expired anti-virus would detect viruses but refuse to to clean them
5. They get this fake virus full screen banner when they visit a trusted website. In my sister's case it was hotmail.com. This leads me to suspect it could had been either a rogue banner or she has a virus on her machine prior to the incident
6. Money is not an issue for them so they would rather throw money (and their credit card information) at an immediate problem ("YOUR COMPUTER HAS A VIRUS") than stop and think about the situation they aren't familiar with and try to deduce what is really happening
7. They don't read the newspaper in detail much anymore so they miss the millions of columns that have already warned about this scam
Fortunately she called me within minutes of installing the software and realized it all started to be very suspicious. We then got a new credit card number, disputed the charges, and used system restore (which is apparently all that is needed to get rid of this particular fake anti-virus).
You do know that the article you link to merely says that there are more clickthroughs coming from IE than from Safari? This is a bit like saying that Luxemborgians are less gullible than Americans because they buy less off of Ebay.
I started using PCs in 1987. I've been using Linux for over a decade. I have firewalls, anti-virus on all my (Windows) PCs and generally take care out there on the Interweb. I am the person the rest of my family calls when their computers go wrong.
And still I got infected at the end of February. My first malware infection ever.
At the time of the infection (or at least the timestamps on the files I later removed after dual-booting into Ubuntu) my wife was using the family PC to surf some popular websites - checking details of a large London hotel she was visiting, as well as flight times into Heathrow, that sort of thing. No dodgy porn sites involved (as far as I know). She was running a user account without admin privileges.
To this day I'm not 100% sure how we got infected, but I think it's possibly because our version of Java was about 18 months out of date - turns out the automatic update hadn't been working (and hadn't made a big enough noise about the failure for me to react). Maybe I'm just comforting myself but I think that this was a *very* sophisticated attack and I'm not surprised that so many users fell victim to it.
The attitude I usually see from Mac owners, is more "Haha, with my powerful OSX I am invulnerable to all know Viruses!". An attitude which will in time create it's own problems, I suspect.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.