Adware / Spyware Extortion

                                                Blessed are the Geeks, for they shall internet the earth

Adware / Spyware Extortion
by Douglas Chick

There are innumerable reports of Adware and Spyware removal programs suddenly appearing on someone?s computer and asking for a fee to remove the viruses it has suddenly discovered. Click HERE to download Video. Many of these programs, if not all of them are the ?infection? themselves. The program installs itself on your computer during either a visit to a website, or from a worm that travels the internet looking for an unpatched computer. Some of these computers install other Spyware programs, and will remove them for a fee as well..

SpyFalcon, and SpyAxe are but two programs that are named by Symantec as "Spyware extortion offenders".

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/spyfalcon.html

Extortion viruses are programs that install themselves on your computer, or you install them under false pretenses. The program may take over your computer, warn you of a dangerous virus, and not allow you to use your computer until you pay what seems a typical $29.99 fee to remove it. In addition to taking your money, they take your credit card number and person information and sell them to criminals, perhaps even a terrorist.

Browser Hijackers:

Browser Hijackers are malicious programs that plugs itself into your web browser, and redirects you to another home page upon opening it. This is a guerrilla style of advertising that ensures that the victim can only go to their website upon opening of a browser. Many advertise the purchase of a program that removes the Hijacker.

Method of Infection:

The typical method of infection for a browser hijacker is through the installation of freeware, (free software) A person may think they are downloading a free virus removal program, most are fake, and instead that are downloading the very program itself.

Popups are another method of infection. You may receive a popup that asked you a question with a yes or no answer button. (Do you want to install this on your computer.) Both buttons may read Yes or No, but both buttons are programmed YES.

Examples:

Adware: Adware is an infectious parasite that hides itself in your computer, and displays advertisement in popups. Adware also can gather information about user?s habits and interests and send it out through a background Internet connection. Such behavior allows adware vendors to deliver targeted advertisements to the end user and collect general statistics. These types of programs are difficult to find and remove.

 Adware behavior:

- Continuously serves commercial advertisements and displays pop-ups.
- Installs advertising toolbars, additional adware programs or undesirable third-party software.
- Creates numerous links to advertising resources, places desktop shortcuts to marketing sites, adds bookmarks to the web browser?s Favorites list.
- Tracks user?s web browsing habits, gathers information about user?s interests, records addresses of visited web sites, logs taken actions and sends some or all collected data to a remote server.
- Degrades overall system performance. Some adware parasites are badly programmed; they waste too much computer resources and cause software instability.
- Updates itself via the Internet and often does not provide the complete uninstall feature.

As it was said above adware parasites are quite similar to spyware threats and therefore cannot be removed with the help of popular antivirus products. To remove them special anti-spyware tools (spyware removers) should be used. These programs scan the system in similar way as antivirus software. However, they have special parasite signature databases, which allow them to detect and eliminate most spyware and adware threats. Powerful spyware removers include real-time monitors that prevent the installation of known risks and unauthorized system modification. The most effective and popular anti-spyware programs are Spyware Doctor, Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware SE, SpyHunter, eTrust PestPatrol.

Examples of adware:

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