Beware MonaRonaDona antivirus scam

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Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:27 pm

Just got this info sent to my in-box.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/030308-monaronadona-scam.html

Quote:

f your computer gets infected with a Trojan called the "MonaRonaDona virus," be careful with what you use to wipe it off your computer, says antimalware software provider Kaspersky Lab. MonaRonaDona is part of an elaborate scam to sell fake antivirus software, Kaspersky researchers say

Seems that this virus will blatantly announce itself on your computer and then when you google for removal

Quote:

to find out more about it, only to find fake online stories and bogus commentary that instruct victims to use fake antivirus tools � the prominent one being called Unigray, available from the Unigray.com Web site, for about $39.00

From a security standpoint this is pretty interesting in that a virus is used as the hook for an actual scam.

Hmm, aside from phishing pages can anyone else come up with examples of this kind of thing?

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:59 pm

unigray.com:

Quote:

We're sorry, but the website you are trying to access is currently undergoing system maintenance. Please try again at a later time.

I know some time ago there were some in-the-wild viruses, that encrypted some files in your computer. The virus asked the user to send money to the distributer of the virus, to get the password for unlocking your files.
Basically it was blackmailing...but the scheme is just so ironic; you have to pay to get your files decrypted.

419Eater is my life Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 428

This is slightly less obvious... at least to the typical scam victims. They don't realize the people they're paying are the ones who created the virus.

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:29 pm

Stoker Thompson wrote:

... can anyone else come up with examples of this kind of thing?

Sure.

95% of all television ads for non-perscription drugs.

The ads create the need. Nobody really needs most of them. Just live healthier, it's a lot cheaper.

Are you regular? Laughing

Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:38 pm

^^^^^^

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:52 am

Yes!

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

kleindoofy wrote:

95% of all television ads for non-perscription drugs.

I once heard it said that Americans have the most expensive urine on Earth. Laughing

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 2:27 am

This type of scam has been going on for ages. Just a different form of it. In fact, there was a registry scanner scam that used Active Desktop and some reg tweaks to "warn" you that "spyware" may be present in your PC and it automatically linked to a website that was magically the correct remedy for it. It was a nasty virus too, locked you out of Add/Remove Programs, Desktop Settings, and kept re-adding itself to the startup. the best thing I can recommend to remedy this problem quickly is to download the crappy software, let it do its trial scan, and once it reveals the location of the file/registry keys, manually delete them. This is what I did and thigns returned to normal.