Page 1 of 1

Anatomy of a malware scam.

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 15:08
by Dr. kitteny berk

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 15:26
by Shada
Haha, I love how fake anti-malware software goes to so much effort to look authentic and blend with the rest of your computer, but still it's always riddled with spelling mistakes and slight UI mismatches, like the colour in the security center or the wrong window style.

How can people fall for this shit? :(

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 16:12
by Dr. kitteny berk
Shada wrote:How can people fall for this shit? :(
Desensitisation.

All people hear is USE AV, and see lots of warning dialogues that they click through.

So when something looks like a dialogue, and tells them to use AV, they just blindly click.

Easiest cure is probably just to use the windows classic theme. all of these scams use the luna theme, so a completely wrong looking dialogue just gets ignored.

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 16:18
by Stoat
Shada wrote:How can people fall for this shit? :(
Ignorance and/or greed, same as con artists in any field.

Interesting article. Some of it was worryingly well done.
Berk wrote:Easiest cure is probably just to use the windows classic theme.
Yeah, this is somewhere more customization could help. XP and Fista are hopelessly limited in these areas (although Aero can be coloured to your preference).

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 16:23
by Dr. kitteny berk
Stoat wrote:Yeah, this is somewhere more customization could help. XP and Fista are hopelessly limited in these areas (although Aero can be coloured to your preference).
:above:

Obviously, the themes etc are fixable, but it should be more native (than separate apps or replacing dlls)

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 19:09
by Roman Totale
Very interesting. Given how easily some people fall for the really obvious shit ("why has no-one removed this yet?!"), it makes you wonder how many people get caught out by the slick stuff like this.

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 19:21
by Dr. kitteny berk
Roman Totale wrote:Very interesting. Given how easily some people fall for the really obvious shit ("why has no-one removed this yet?!"), it makes you wonder how many people get caught out by the slick stuff like this.
:above: