As reported by swedishwire.com, three men - from the US and Sweden - responsible for spreading infamous scareware such as "Errorsafe" and "Drivecleaner" may be facing hard penalties for their fraudulent activities. They operated via a Ukraine-based company called "Innovative Marketing" located in Kiev. The fraud scheme of the perpetrators was based on tricking gullible users into believing that their computers were heavily infected. The purpose of the scare tactics were to lure users into buying bogus anti-virus/anti-spyware software provided by the criminals.

"Errorsafe" and "Drivecleaner" are two of the oldest rogue security software programs on the arena and the criminals have had time to collect around 100 million dollars by their conduct. The perpetrators fraudulently obtained profit may now be turned into inprisonment for up to 20 years.

These types of fraudulent activities are sadly not limited to this single occasion; rogues and scareware are a growing pest on the Web and users need to become more aware of the tactics used by the perpetrators in order to protect themselves. The Lavasoft Malware Labs Blog and the Lavasoft Rogue Gallery are good sources for information on new emerging threats. Also, the whitepaper "Fraud Tools and the Malware Economy" provides a more in depth discussion on the matter.

Using software such as Ad-Aware Pro - that includes anti-spyware, anti-virus and real-time registry and process protection - is a good addition to the protective arsenal of every security-conscious user.

Pekka Andelin

Malware Analyst

Lavasoft Malware Labs