One of my computers has Skype Chat turned on. This afternoon I received a message from Security Center ® (Offline) Skype™ Chat (yes those registration marks are what was there) warning me that WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION.
The warning directs the reader to "download the patch" from a website calling itself Onlinealert.
Normally I'd disregard this but this is my test machine that I know is clean so I thought I'd visit the Onlinealert page.
Sure enough, this site runs a fake scan from an organisation called ScanAlert that gives a bunch of fake malware detections.
I don't know how much ScanAlert charge for their wares, but given the false results I personally wouldn't be trusting them too much to keep my computer hacker safe.
Incidentally, the Onlinealert domain is registered to someone in Moscow calling themselves Sergei Machorin.
I'm sure if Sergei really exists, he'll make a few bucks from people who've been fooled into this little scam.
It will be interesting to see what Skype have to say about this.
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3 comments:
I've just received this too. It quite threw me at first, before I realised it was a chat window in Skype. It is the first bit of Skype spam I've received and might have looked convincing if it had not been alerting me to problems with a list of Windows applications when I happen to be running a Mac!
Annoyed! I have a home built generic PC and was researching on the internet when one of the tabs I opened took me NOT to the subject I wanted but to some web site that said it was scanning my computer (the graphics were pretty good) and that I had Backdoor: Win32/NT Root, Backdoor: Win32/Sivuxa, Trojan.Caijing along with 6 more it said needed to be removed and all I needed to do was allow this web site to download into my computer. Then it would remove the unwanted Trojans and malware. I actually closed down my search and started looking up the Trojans! even though I know I have good software prevention and having all of those would be pretty unlikely. DUHHHHHHHH.
I just got this message. I knew it must be fake because it told me that my "Microsoft Windows Vista" was infected and I use a MAC, so I quickly disregarded it as a scam.
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