Problems about Fake Anti-Virus
Many of us are unaware that the antivirus industry has their own share of complicated problems as well. These problems cannot be fixed by certain tweaks on the software’s algorithm or even productivity bonuses to their employees.
There is plenty of free anti-virus software in the Internet today, and surprisingly the anti-virus industry is not unhappy about it. It is because they also provide free scanners for non-corporate individuals. Because of this, many users would choose for free software, than maintaining expensive and more decent anti-virus software. Some people believe there is a war between free software against paid software, it may sound interesting but there is no such thing as that. The only problem anti-virus companies are really concerned about is the proliferation and manifestation of fake anti-virus software in the market and the culprits behind them – clearly they have seen a profit between the gaps of free software.
One interesting feature about this kind of problem is that fake anti-viruses are now incorporating the term online support. In fact, the engagement of victims with the certain fake product begins with the free trial of the program, uninstaller and a completing a survey regarding the program. It may sound like a legit product that really works; however, it cannot defend the system against legit malware and virus attacks much more detecting them or performing some simple incident handling.
Sometimes, bottom feeders and crooks would perform aggressive marketing strategies to hook their victims. For instance, victims will receive calls from a pretentious person claiming to be an analyst of Microsoft. That person would say that the victim’s pc is infected with a virus or malware and that in the event log before him shows that the victim’s computer has suffered numerous attacks from viruses and malware. That idea could be distressing indeed and in the event that the victim is convinced, the person on the phone will then say that he will install a much better antivirus for a certain fee.
Well, that sort of marketing technique is not employed by any reputable and credible internet security company. By any means, this sort of strategy is the work of criminals and the copy they have will just a cracked version or a fake copy of the real thing. Sadly, this kind of scam has fooled many victims and has been reported to all of security companies and law enforcement agencies. These scammers would sometimes work under the names of different legitimate companies; but somehow, this kind of modus operandi doesn’t work all the time.
However, these only happens to people who use pirated, cracked, fake or even free copies of the real deal – that is the security software. According to disclosed information, for every 5 victims of malware and virus attacks, 2 of them will try to get support from the real thing. Unfortunately, it cannot help them because of the established fact that they don’t have the real software installed. Surprisingly, a huge number of those victims or who received the scam calls were people who are in the cyber security industry, their friends, relatives and families. In fact, this number is those people who really don’t have the needed background knowledge and it also happens that they are more conscious about the security of their desktop.
This kind of scam remains the same as any other types of scam – it relies on social engineering skills. In this case the victims fall prey to the psychological manipulation of scammers, since the victims are more conscious and more afraid of virus malware as well as hacks. And it is also because these victims have no knowledge and lacks caution when it comes to anonymous calls.
Since the victims lack the knowledge, they are too gullible when the scammer would ask them to open the desktop’s Event Viewer so that they could see the so called evidence of the infection. Actually the Event Viewer is a compilation of reports, warning as well as errors in the operating systems services and programs; since the victim is not aware of that they would believe that something is really wrong about their system.
Cyber security doesn’t mean that it is only about hacks and viruses; sometimes spam and malicious calls to the malware-fearing population is also part of their responsibilities. Although they can be mitigated by knowledgeable and aware users, it is not bad to conduct incident response with your computer by employing the help of someone who has completed incident handling training.
The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer trainings in incident handling.
More information about EC-Council is available at http://www.eccouncil.org.
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