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?

Protecting yourself from getting duped by the initial pop-up is not as simple as it would seem. Virus writers are very clever in their deceit and will sometimes make the 'No' button mean 'Yes' and the red 'X' that would normally close a window might just be an elaborate image created on the web page itself to get you to think you are doing the safe thing while you've walked right into their trap. I can tell you don't like where this is going...

Fortunately there is a program that can save your web browsing future self from an uncomfortable infection. Sandboxie is a tool that acts as a sort of firewall for your web browser, or any other program on your system for that matter. Just as a firewall keeps other computers from initiating direct contact with your computer, Sandboxie keeps programs and websites from making direct changes to your computer. Read more about it in the Software Picks section.