UserProtection is a new rogue anti-virus application. It is a clone of PaladinAntivirus.

Tax season is not a favorite time of year for most of us, but it’s drawing near in many parts of the world.

For those in the U.S., the April 15 income tax filing deadline is quickly approaching. Unfortunately, tax season has its own set of security traps that you’ll need to watch out for, with cyber scammers jumping to take advantage of the swell in online activity and the handover of personal information.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) that serves as a clearinghouse to triage cyber crime complaints, has released its 2009 annual Internet crime report. This year’s findings show that, once again this year, online crime complaints ‘increased substantially,’ highlighting the threat posed by cyber criminals.

From the 2009 Internet Crime Report:

In Lavasoft Malware Labs’ Internet security predictions for 2010, we listed scareware and rogue (fake) security products as a rising threat to watch out for. The money made from this malware model ensures that cyber criminals will not abandon what is a very profitable endeavor for them - meaning that this prediction will, unfortunately for users around the world, continue to ring true this year.

Microsoft has announced their second known zero-day vulnerability within the last 60 days. This one affects older browsers including IE6 and IE7 - it doesn't seem to affect the old IE5.01 or the current IE8. Unfortunately, a patch is not yet available, and Microsoft has not yet announced when they will release the fix.