People often believe that cyber scammers and malware creators are impossible to catch and punish. Fortunately, that’s not true. Although, malware makers are rarely identified, October 2008 brings some losses for scammers’ community as distributors of Antivirus XP rogue application are being sued.
People behind scams like AntiVirusXP are known for the lack of information about them. Websites that sell corrupt security tools usually have no data on creators or vendors; usually there are no names or contacts given. This is how people can recognize distributors of rogue security tools: the websites only have information on how to purchase some program, but no details about company that takes the money.
Malware vendors hide well, however they do make mistakes. Distributors of Antivirus XP were bold enough and dumb enough to buy advertisements on Google Adwords! You get it right: someone looking for anti-virus software on Google search engine was offered Antivirus XP by official adds from Google. The scam was noticed pretty soon. Security experts all over the web guess that this mistake was the one that revealed names of AntivirusXP vendors. Victims of Antivirus XP can start celebrating as the distributors won’t get away easily.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Who do we contact for a refund of thsi crap that we bought???
November 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm
This article is worthless. You don’t even list who is sueing who. Take it off the internet…it’s pathetic.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Somehow I got this too. It keeps coming back even though I have used a few removal tools.
My BIG question is: How do I get involved in this lawsuit?
I consider this not only to be a crime against me, I consider myself to be a victim of cyber-terrorism at the hands of these a-holes. And I’d like to get in on any judicial award. Truth is that we as a society need to start treating these criminals like we do other terrorists- we need to hunt them down, kill them (jail time is not a deterrent or an acceptable punishment for these creeps), seize their bank accounts, and distribute the cash left over (after paying the investigation costs) to the victims. And just as with Osama… I’d like to be the guy to pull the trigger!
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Laurie, If you bought it than you have no one to blame but yourself stupid noob!
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Add to my Bookmarks )