Court orders 'scareware' shut down
From an article in the Baltimore Sun:
Quote:
By Tricia Bishop | tricia.bishop@ baltsun.com
December 13, 2008
A Baltimore federal court judge ordered six absent defendants yesterday - including one from Maryland - to shut down Internet businesses that the Federal Trade Commission claims are part of a vast $100 million "scareware" scheme that tricked more than a million people into purchasing useless security software by making them think their computers were under attack.
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Phony problems
The companies allegedly represented themselves falsely as Internet marketers and used legitimate advertising outlets to place malicious advertisements that redirected consumers to the defendants' Web sites.
There, screens would pop up saying a security scan had revealed harmful or illegal files and urging computer users to purchase software for $40 to fix the phony problems. In that way, the companies were able to bilk people of more than $100 million, according to the FTC.
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Among those who consider themselves victims of the companies is Maryland attorney Stephen R. Layton, who submitted a statement to the court.
He said he uses a computer operating WindowsXP for business and was online about seven months ago when an alert popped up offering anti-virus software.
He clicked the "x" to close the box, which launched another alert that said he had thousands of viruses on his computer.
He was then directed to a Web site that said he could buy security software to fix his computer. The alert stayed there even after he shut down his machine, and a program appended virus messages to all of his files.
Layton said the defendants' programs essentially took over his computer and caused the loss of photos, documents and other files.
He replaced the desktop.
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