At Your Door

Our shop has seen a recent increase in the number of virus infections coming in the form of rogue anti-virus software. In an attempt to trick you into installing their harmful software, these virus creators have been inserting code into advertisements that give you a pop-up window alerting you to the compromised state of your computer. These messages are somewhat generic; from stating that you have no anti-virus installed to a claim that you have been infected by 532 viruses already. Their goal is to get you to click OK to the message which installs their software straight from your browser. Your existing anti-virus has no chance against what amounts to a user-installed program coming in and disabling it.

Symptoms of a rogue infection

Soon after you've let this seemingly helpful software into your life, you'll become plagued with annoying pop-ups that your system is still unsecured. If you were to follow the advice of the pop-ups (do not do this), you would likely get to a form to fill out your credit card information in order to remove the viruses from your system. I think you see where this is going! One new customer to our services had already fallen for the bait and wound up with a badly infected PC as well as a call from the credit card company asking if they were aware of the purchases made in Russia.

How can I protect myself?

A string of arrests have been made recently of credit card thieves. What's troubling is that these criminals are tricking the public into handing over their card and PIN using sophisticated devices called skimmers that attach directly to an ATM. When you insert your card into an ATM, it could easily pass through a skimmer device that would record your number electronically and your PIN using and on-board pinhole camera.

How can I protect myself?