Thread: US shuts down 'scareware' sellers

US shuts down 'scareware' sellers

The US government has moved to shut down sellers of fake security software.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has won a restraining order that stops several sellers of "scareware" from continuing to trade.

Millions of people are thought to have been caught out by the software which, once installed, issues false alerts about viruses and illegal porn.

The FTC is pursuing further legal action to win a permanent ban on those peddling the scareware.

Frozen funds

Court papers submitted by the FTC show that the peddlers of the fake security software tricked websites into advertising their products.

The companies behind the fake security software won customers via adverts on many popular websites.

Anyone clicking on an advert was taken to the webpages run by the fake security firms which then ran a "scan" looking for security problems. The popularity of the rogue anti-virus and spyware products has rocketed

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, Finjan

Every scan found a host of security problems and urged visitors to buy software to fix them. Typically the scans found evidence of viruses, spyware and, in some cases, illegal pornography.

"However," said the FTC, "the scans were entirely false."

In its legal action the FTC targeted two firms: Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC.

The fake security products the firms were peddling were: WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus.

A US District court granted an injunction which stops Innovative Marketing and ByteHosting Internet Services from continuing to advertise their products, and from making false claims about their efficacy.

It has also asked firms hosting the websites owned by these firms to block customers from accessing them. And it has also frozen the assets of the two companies so it can reclaim cash and refund those caught out.

More than one million US citizens and many more around the world are thought to have been caught out by the "scareware" scam.

"The popularity of the rogue anti-virus and spyware products has rocketed," said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer at security firm Finjan.

"People are paying 40-60 dollars for bogus software which does nothing," he said, adding that Finjan research suggests up to five million people around the world have fallen victim to the huge number of firms selling "scareware".

Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer at Websense, said many "scareware" firms ran very sophisticated operations. Many use search engines to ensure web users see their adverts and tune their products to each territory.

"They seem to know the law in different regions," he said. "They monetise it very well."

Net firms rebuff filtering plan

Australian government plans to filter net use have been rebuffed by local internet service providers (ISPs).

Telstra, Australia's largest ISP, has said it will not join trials of the filters and others say they will only back a scaled-down system.

The government wants to filter all net traffic and block access to 10,000 sites deemed to hold illegal content.

The initial trials of the filtering technology were due to take place before Christmas.

Protest plan

Australian newspaper The Age reports that both Telstra and Internode have declared they will not participate in the trials. iiNet said it wanted to take part to show that the filters do not work and Optus would only work with a scaled back plan.

The plan to set up mandatory filters followed research by the Australian Communications and Media Authority which found that existing filters did a poor job of blocking illegal content.

Responding to the rebuff by ISPs, Australia's communications minister Stephen Conroy said the initial trials would not be "closed" and involve no actual customers.

Optus said it would take part in the trial in early 2009 but would only impose filters that blocked access to a 1300-strong list of sites hosting illegal content.

It said it would not block access to the full 10,000 sites demanded by the Australian government nor impose the second tier of filtering that blocks sites unsuitable for children.

Politicians for Australia's Green party called on the government to abandon the filtering plan which has been widely criticised.

Protests are expected on 13 December in Sydney and Melbourne calling for an end to the scheme.