FBI Targets Cybercrooks In Internet Scams Amounting to Losses Over $150 Million

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has turned its attention to cybercrime by issuing a scareware alert at the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The alert describes the aggressive tactics used in Internet scams and estimates that they caused losses amounting to over $150 million.

Scareware (or rogueware) is a term used for fake anti-virus products that trick users into paying for license fees after bombarding them with false security alerts. These schemes are so profitable that cybercrooks have built an entire underground economy based on it.

Some cybercriminal gangs offer scareware deployment services through their own malware infrastructure, while others get paid big bucks to launch blackhat search engine optimization (BHSEO) campaigns in order to poison search engine results for popular terms. Scareware is so prevalent these days that there is no single attack vector to watch for.

If your computer is infected with a Trojan, there is a strong chance that scareware will also be downloaded on your PC. If you search for news about a current event and click on several different results, chances are you'll end up at a rogue site pushing scareware. Even if you only visit legit and trusted websites, you can still end up encountering a malicious advertisement (malvertisement) that promotes scareware.

The scareware alert refers mostly to one particular scareware distribution channel, the web.

The alert reads:

"An ongoing threat exists for computer users who, while browsing the Internet, began receiving pop-up security warnings that state their computers are infected with numerous viruses."

These pop-ups are quite aggressive and the only escape for the user is to kill the browser process and restart with a new session. It might not even matter if the user clicks on such a pop-up or not, as attackers use exploit kits embedded into Web pages to perform unauthorized installations known as drive-by downloads.

The alert, which is a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center, and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), recommends surfing the Web with a reliable and up-to-date antivirus program installed.

"If a user receives these anti-virus pop-ups, it is recommended to close the browser or shut the system down. It is suggested that the user run a full, anti-virus scan whenever the computer is turned back on," the FBI advises.

The FBI estimates that over $150 million has been lost to victims, but the real figure is likely to be much higher and these cybergangs are starting to adopt an even more aggressive model known as ransomware. Applications that fall into this category do exactly what the name suggests, hold computers for ransom. They disable functionality of the operating system, then claim that malware is responsible and that they are able to fix it, if users agree to pay for a license fee.

Be sure to make use of a reliable anti-spyware program to avoid being scammed by cyber criminals.