The Conficker worm, in an attempt to take the internet community by surprise, has recently activated on an unexpected date and has “phoned home” from infected computers to get some malicious payload of scare ware installed on those computers.

The scare ware is fake anti-virus software that “finds” infections on the infected machine and asks the user to pay $49.95 to get rid of them. I don’t know if the user’s machine is actually infected with the malware that the bogus anti-virus finds before it is detected, or whether the malware program simply lies. – ‘Probably a bit of both. – And you can bet that any installed trojans and spyware that the Conficker distributors find it useful for your computer to stay infected with aren’t detected.

Conficker exploits Windows vulnerabilities that have been patched for a while now. – So if you have Conficker on your machine and it’s working as intended, then you haven’t got the necessary patches from Microsoft.

First we need to be more definite about whether or not your machine is infected. Go here to find out. – It’s fairly self-explanatory. If it appears that your machine is infected, download and run the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool. – That will kill the infection, plus several others if you have them. Now repair/re-download/update your anti-virus software as necessary, and run a manual scan.

In future ensure that the latest patches from Microsoft are applied to your system as and when they are issued. This will avoid your computer becoming infected, and even if it should still become infected, the virus won’t be able to function and will be exterminated by the Malicious Software Removal Tool.

Have you ever visited a site and been redirected straight to a page saying something like:

“WARNING! Your computer is infected! Our initial scans have detected a possible malware infestation on your computer. Click here for a free full scan.”

So this advertiser is claiming to have scanned my files without my permission and found malware? Alarm-bells sound straight away. Whether I click “Scan Now” or “Cancel” their alleged malware scanner begins working: Clever that, as there’s no internet communication as such during this “scan”; and the only thing that’s been loaded onto my computer is a Flash animation.

Before I can think clearly the “in-depth scan” is over and reports that I have X amount of trojans and Y amount of other malicious programs on my PC! Wow: The only way that they could have got on there is if the advertiser had just put them there. I cancel the page and run a malware scan using XoftSpySE. The scan reveals 10 low-risk spyware cookies; at least 6 of which were put there by this advert. The Ad goes on to tell me that I should pay for their software which can find malware that other programs can’t…

Years ago I once downloaded a program called “Spyware Nuker” which used advertising tactics just like this, onto a clean install of Windows 98SE on a new hard-drive which I’d formatted in FAT32 that day. This HD had never been exposed to the internet before then but Spyware Nuker found oodles of malware and claimed it had fixed all of the problems. I uninstalled Spyware Nuker and ran Ad-Aware free edition – It found a trojan and loads of spyware that Spyware Nuker had planted on my system.

My guess is that the program you’re now considering downloading will do much the same. Here’s what actually happened:-

The URL that you typed redirected your browser to the advertiser’s URL, where the ad including a small flash animation and a few spyware cookies were loaded up to your HD. The “Scan Now/Cancel” panel was overall linked to a single link, which told the flash animation to run. After it had run, feigning a scanner GUI, the window uploaded a few names of various malware components at random from a database on the server and displayed them as infections on your computer.

The intention was for you to say

“OMG I have these infections that my current antispyware missed – What a clever piece of software! I must buy it now.”

Probably when you purchase it it’ll upload all those infections to your computer along with some others, it’ll then eradicate the infections it says it found, leaving you with the others it wasn’t supposed to find: Now you have a compromised system that is at the mercy of whoever has paid the highest price for use of your new bot – And worst of all if you’re not that computer-savvy, you’ll never know anything about it unless your ISP contacts you with a complaint.

Advice: If you ever see an Ad appear telling you that your computer is infected; close the page or ignore it – Don’t even bother with it. You might try telling the webmaster of the site that you intended to visit about this; as the webmaster may be unaware that their new advertising that they’ve just signed up for is run by unethical enterprise.

Remember, on the internet; if it sounds too good to be true then it is: 999 out of 1000 times there’s no “probably” about it.  If several reputable programs find no spyware, then one that you’ve never heard of informs you that your computer is infested; it’s fairly safe to assume that you’re being conned; especially if that program is over-hasty to grab your business at all costs.

Some advertising does have a funny side though:

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Seriously now:

*Shazza recommends*

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