The Antivirus Virus

[mrlich]

Heya boys and girls. Just a quick heads up about something that I've come across in my professional world.

People have been getting hit with a virus behind firewalls and with antivirus protection. In fact, this latest virus counts on the fact that you have virus protection in order to propagate. It sends you something when you visit a website (in this case, our experience has been Facebook, though I'm sure there are others) that the creators of the virus know that your antivirus program will detect. This causes your antivirus to pop up a little warning window.

At this point, most likely, your system is NOT infected. The fact that your antivirus program popped up a little window is just to warn you that something was sent to you that was bad.

Here's where this particular virus gets a little tricky. They send a second pop up to your screen which says something to the effect of "Hey! You have a virus! Click here to get rid of it!"

Do not - I repeat: Do NOT - EVER click on a pop up message like this.

"But... it looks like it's from my antivirus program!" you say.

"Read that previous line again." is my response.

Your antivirus program will not likely EVER say something like "Hey - I noticed this virus but I'm not going to do anything about it until you click right here." That's when the real virus gets installed - with your blessing (you gave it when you clicked).

Keep your antivirus programs updated. Run regular scans. Work ONLY within your antivirus programs when you think you might have a virus. DO NOT EVER click on the little pop up window because it's convenient.

Virus creators know that you'll do that 'quick and easy' solution because you believe that you're doing the right thing. Unfortunately, quick and easy seldom = the right thing to do.

/end PSA

Oh - and please do NOT forward this to everyone you know. If you care to inform someone - talk to them. Reword this one. Make it original. Again - the 'quick and easy' is seldom equal to 'the right thing to do'. 

Comments

[ianvass.livejournal.com]

When I was still working at a law firm, we had a spate of virii that - get this - went to install a program with an actual legal-looking T&C form. Since it looked legit, the lawyers installed the dang thing without reading the T&C (which, incidentally, actually laid out the entire plan of attack for the virus). Oh, man, was it a mess. But a hilarious one since several of those lawyers I was quite friendly with and I was able to razz them for some time about the whole thing. :)

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

Yeah - there is an extra sweet element to the whole "lawyers not reading the T&C" thing.

[ianvass.livejournal.com]

Ex-ACT-ly. They didn't hear the end of it from me for several months. :)

Good times, good times...