5 replies to this topic

[Burned Phoenix]

Windows users running Firefox are being targeted by a new scareware groomed to look convincingly like Microsoft Update. Criminals behind fake anti-virus continuing to customize their social engineering attacks to be more believable to users and presumably more successful. A few days ago fake Firefox malware warnings were leading users to rogue security software. This week they've started to imitate Microsoft Update.



This particular scareware aims to tricks Windows users running Mozilla Firefox into installing a fake antivirus package. It starts with an alert window popping up, purportedly for installing a critical update to -- fittingly -- the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. The window does bear a striking resemblance to a real Windows Update window.

If the user agrees to install the 2.8MB "security update," he or she really ends up installing scareware: fake antivirus software that tells the user that his or her systems is plagued with viruses and urges the user to purchase a full version of the "antivirus software" to commence the system-cleansing process.

This scareware does have one notable tell that might tip off users that it's fake: It prompts them to perform a Windows Update while running Firefox. Authentic Windows Updates only launch through Internet Explorer.

Via Infoworld

[SurB86]

Scareware is a new trend.

[FalseAgent]

"This installation is essential for the normal work of your system"

english fail, scare fail.

also, the Mirosoft/Windows update website-based installer only works on XP. Here's what users running Vista/7 should be seeing on windowsupdate.com:

Edited by FalseAgent, 11 June 2011 - 04:55 AM.

[P.McGinley]

Normal Windows users will definitely fall for this.

[pataoengineer]

Those people out there are gonna believe this and let the installation run.

One of my friends used to encounter an infection by a fake explorer window

and a fake virus notification. Guess it. She permitted them to run and come

into her PC so easily.

[lordalpha1]

_{And a lot of noobs are still using firefox 3.6? Wtf?}