A Fake Antivirus may be a Malware

According to 13-month analysis conducted by Google between January 2009 and February 2010, fake antivirus represents 15% of all malware detected on web sites. Cyberattackers use fake antivirus offering to inject Malware in your system rather than fixing the problem. The principal software engineer of Google added that this is five times increase since they started the first study.

Advertisement accounts 50% of all Malware counted and high profile websites depends heavily on advertisement. Google studied 240 million Web pages and found more than 11,000 domains that are involved in fake antivirus distribution. Google’s safe browsing technology like Chrome and Firefox alerts user to sites that are hosting Malware.

“As early as 2003, malware authors prompted users to download fake AV software by sending messages via a vulnerability in the Microsoft Messenger service. We observed the first form of fake AV attack involving Web sites, e.g. Malwarealarm.com, in our systems on March 3, 2007,” the report says. “At that time, fake AV attacks employed simple JavaScript to display an alert that asked users to download a fake AV executable.”

But, recently fake antivirus sites use complex Javascript to change the look and feel of the Windows. In some cases, AV sites even detect the operating system of the user and change the interface accordingly. Once you install it, it will be difficult for you to run Windows upgrade or any other Antivirus software. The only option is to reinstall the operating system.

If you come across with this type of pop up message for fake AV, please, close the browser and restart again. You also need to monitor your credit card because the attackers can use it as identity fraud.