Warning! Warning!
Recently I was almost caught by a computer scam. I was trolling the internet (I know most people use the term "surfing" but I'm not that athletic) when I noticed a small red shield with a cross in it flashing in the bar in the bottom rh corner of the screen.
Naturally I clicked on it, and out popped a message balloon saying: "Warning, your computer has been infected by Trojan-spy.win32@mx. To remove this, download the official security software by clicking on this message." I tried this and an internet site popped up, with a message that told me that I should download their security program that would solve my problem. At the same time other warning messages popped up saying that I had been infected by spyware Cyborgx and others. These warnings had little yellow shields and looked very official and were accompanied by various beeps and sounds.
I was of course somewhat panicked, but I knew that I had a spyware program, Spysweeper, and wondered why it hadn't been activated by such infections. So I resisted the temptation to open the supposed official security program that would save me and instead ran my own spysweeper program. However, while this detected a few nasty cookies etc, it did not detect the supposed trojan or others that had been announced. Whereupon I called my computer advisor, and he warned me not to open the security program, but instead to go to the internet and search for anti-trojan freeware, since my spysweeper might not be able to handle a "trojan," that is a spy program that allows others to enter your computer and steal information.
So I did this, I made a Google search and looked at a few websites. I also wrote to the company that sells Spysweeper to complain. Then I downloaded one program called Spy doctor. After I installed it and ran it, it found 7 malicious spy programs, not found by my own spysweeper, but then it said that I must register the program before it would delete them, and then it said that in order to register I must purchase a copy online. So once more it was a scam. I was so annoyed that I uninstalled the program, and then had to reboot the computer, and lo and behold, the whole nightmare vanished, all the flashing shields and messages and beeping gone! Inadvertently I had solved the problem.
Apart from the fact that everytime I open the internet browser I get this same security site and a warning message (that I delete) my computer seems to be running fine. The fact that the computer seems to be OK makes me think that the whole thing was a scam to get me to buy their security program. I don't think there was any trojan infection and all the messages and shields were an elaborate show to panic me and get me to buy their program, at what cost I don't know. It is also possible that had I downloaded their program it may have contained a malicious trojan or malware. However, the following day I did have a trojan spy program (Zlob.BHI) that was detected and deleted by my anti-virus program, so there may actually have been an infection from this incident. So I am now doing a report for the company of my spysweeper program, the question is why did it not detect these infections? So beware the internet, my son, like the jabberwock it may be gyred...!
Naturally I clicked on it, and out popped a message balloon saying: "Warning, your computer has been infected by Trojan-spy.win32@mx. To remove this, download the official security software by clicking on this message." I tried this and an internet site popped up, with a message that told me that I should download their security program that would solve my problem. At the same time other warning messages popped up saying that I had been infected by spyware Cyborgx and others. These warnings had little yellow shields and looked very official and were accompanied by various beeps and sounds.
I was of course somewhat panicked, but I knew that I had a spyware program, Spysweeper, and wondered why it hadn't been activated by such infections. So I resisted the temptation to open the supposed official security program that would save me and instead ran my own spysweeper program. However, while this detected a few nasty cookies etc, it did not detect the supposed trojan or others that had been announced. Whereupon I called my computer advisor, and he warned me not to open the security program, but instead to go to the internet and search for anti-trojan freeware, since my spysweeper might not be able to handle a "trojan," that is a spy program that allows others to enter your computer and steal information.
So I did this, I made a Google search and looked at a few websites. I also wrote to the company that sells Spysweeper to complain. Then I downloaded one program called Spy doctor. After I installed it and ran it, it found 7 malicious spy programs, not found by my own spysweeper, but then it said that I must register the program before it would delete them, and then it said that in order to register I must purchase a copy online. So once more it was a scam. I was so annoyed that I uninstalled the program, and then had to reboot the computer, and lo and behold, the whole nightmare vanished, all the flashing shields and messages and beeping gone! Inadvertently I had solved the problem.
Apart from the fact that everytime I open the internet browser I get this same security site and a warning message (that I delete) my computer seems to be running fine. The fact that the computer seems to be OK makes me think that the whole thing was a scam to get me to buy their security program. I don't think there was any trojan infection and all the messages and shields were an elaborate show to panic me and get me to buy their program, at what cost I don't know. It is also possible that had I downloaded their program it may have contained a malicious trojan or malware. However, the following day I did have a trojan spy program (Zlob.BHI) that was detected and deleted by my anti-virus program, so there may actually have been an infection from this incident. So I am now doing a report for the company of my spysweeper program, the question is why did it not detect these infections? So beware the internet, my son, like the jabberwock it may be gyred...!
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:44 AM
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