Virus Scanner Scam

Christmas is just around the corner. Only 10 shopping days left. Many retailers are sending out emails to get you to shop online this season. I know I receive a couple dozen everyday. There are some good deals out there and there are no lines to wait in.

 With everyone online trying to get their list of presents bought, I thought I would recommend that everyone be extra careful when online this season. This brings me to the reason I am writing this article.

 A few days ago, I received a call from a colleague worried that they had gotten a virus. I started to ask some questions about why they thought they were infected. Turns out, a webpage popped up and told them they were infected. Since I knew what antivirus program they were using, I asked if it quarantined the virus. I was told that the system showed a lot of Trojans and wanted them to download a security solution.

I had them take a screen shot so I could see what they were looking at. As you can see from the screen shot below, this looks very real but is truly a scam. One indicator was that the DVD shows it as an “E” drive and their DVD drive was really their “D” drive. I instructed them to close out by pressing the “X” and close the browser.

 

When that was completed, I had them use their legitimate virus scanner to scan the entire drive to make sure nothing was loaded on their computer. It scanned clean as expected.

 Thanks for reading and have a safe and Merry Christmas!