Warning over tricky new virus
BY RICHARD WOODD RICHARD.WOODD@TNL.CO.NZ
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A powerful computer virus that pretends to be an anti-virus protection programme, is causing havoc for Taranaki users.
But it's proving to be a windfall for computer technicians.
Geoff Sharp Computing of Hawera has dealt with infected computers for more than 40 owners in a little over a month, a massive number compared the the normal rate.
"It's coming in through usually safe websites such as Google and Bebo," he said. "The only advice we can give people is to be careful what you click on. If it's unfamiliar or some kind of unexpected pop-up, stay away from it."
There are three major viruses masquerading as Norton or AVG-type virus protection updates: Antivirus 2008, 2009, 360. They use the Norton and AVG logo lookalike logos.
His technician, Matthew Hughes, 23, says the virus is authentic-looking and very hard to identify as a scam.
"If you follow the instructions, you can end up making a credit card payment for a protection update of around $US80 ($NZ158). But all you get is a debit on your card and you may have given your card number away as well."
Ron Donghi, a technician at Janko Computers in New Plymouth, says most people think it is Norton and they follow the download instructions; they want you to make a purchase but there is no product.
"There are a number of variants. We haven't got time to trace origins, we just clean 'em out. It takes one or two hours, depending how bad the infection is. In one case we had to clean up the hard drive," he says.
"One of the headaches is we don't always get it all out. It can leave a little robot behind that realises you've removed the programme and next time you go on the internet, it downloads it again.
"Some of these new bugs can jump in from the equivalent of a drive-by website, without even a click-on.
"My advice is to make sure you have virus protection from a reputable antivirus supplier but also a good anti-spyware and anti-malware programme. We haven't found any programme that will stop these things as they attack. You have to do regular housekeeping by activating a scan. You need to keep these up to date and do a scan every couple of weeks."
One internet site calls the Anti-virus 2009 "a malicious, fake anti-virus programme that will completely mess up your computer. It is a fake application whose goal is to scare the user into purchasing their fake application".
Andrew Leggatt, the Consumer Institute's online editor, says its website was seriously compromised by a virus in the middle of last year an "SQL injection" that could infect an unprotected user.
It was not one of the latest anti-virus protection scams.
"We had to shut down the site for nearly a week while we combed through the html source code, a big job," he said.
- © Fairfax NZ News
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