Yesterday’s patch should stop SpyAxe and WinHound

The twin of SpywareStrike and other antivirus tools that are useless – SpyAxe continues to affect various machines and targets gullible users. There are many identical tools released, so people fall for those false warnings and get scammed.

Microsoft on Tuesday released a cumulative security update for Internet Explorer to fix four security vulnerabilities discovered in this popular web browser. Among the holes, these patch plugs are two critical flaws already successfully exploited by hackers and used by them to take complete control over affected computers.

These flaws also allow planting unsolicited software and dangerous parasites to victim systems. One of the vulnerabilities is used by malicious persons to illegally distribute infamous SpyAxe trojan and WinHound software, which push the same-named corrupt anti-spyware programs to user PCs. These alleged antimalware tools trick users into buying products by claiming that the machine is already infected and showing predetermined scan results.

SpyAxe is the program that gets installed without users' knowledge or permission, so the app can show results of the scan filled with infection names and requires the purchase of the full version that should fix all the issues regarding the security of the PC. Thoe fraudulent warnings claim that the machine is affected and can be damaged by the non-existent threats.

Thousands of malicious websites secretly install these parasites into each visitor’s system. All it takes to get infected is to visit an insecure site with Internet Explorer running on Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP (even with Service Pack 2). The victim will not notice anything suspicious, as exploits do not require any user interaction.

However, now the SpyAxe and WinHound infection rate should come to an end or at least noticeably fall off. All the users, even those who do not use Internet Explorer for everyday web surfing, should apply the most recent update. This should not only stop SpyAxe and WinHound but also reduce the risk of remote intrusion and identity theft.