Symantec warns of Conficker antivirus scam
Symantec is warning that confidence tricksters are using the Conficker coverage to cash in. Scammers are selling bogus antivirus software which they imply are genuine Symantec products to deal with the virus.
The crooks are sending out e-mails offering to protect readers from the effects of the bug by selling them antivirus software.
In a fine example of making a point while still keeping the lawyers happy, Symantec notes,“Whether or not any product will be made available after the payment is made is still unknown at this point. Even if it were, its effectiveness would be questionable because it will most likely be a rogue application or pirated software.”
The scammers themselves also seem to treading a legal tightrope in terms of branding. In the example Symantec reproduces, at least, there’s no specific claim that it’s Symantec products on offer. However, the e-mail “quotes” Kevin Haley, a genuine Symantec spokesman, though not responsible for the words attributed to him.
The Web site the e-mail links to resembles Symantec’s own site, and the product on offer is AntiVirus 2009, the same name as a Symantec product. There’s further implication in the fact that the product is compared with several legitimate rivals such as AVG and Kaspersky, but not to Symantec.
It’s not the first scam on the back of the Conficker coverage. For several weeks crooks have been promoting sites in an attempt to appear high in the results of search engines for phrases to do with the virus. These sites then offer bogus scanning tools designed to sell so-called security software.
The people behind these tricks are pretty quick off the mark. Within hours of the news breaking that there was an effective scanning tool named ‘nmap’ available, results pages for that term were filled with bogus sites.
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