The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has managed to apprehend two international cybercrime rings that were peddling scareware. The scareware was directed towards numerous victims by means of fraudulent online advertisements and pop-ups.
Operation Trident Tribunal, the code name for the effort, managed to apprehend the cybercriminals, who had gained control over a million computers worldwide and had collected as much as $74 million.
The first of the two crime rings was involved with a scam that redirected users to a site that offered a virus scan for free. The site however would infect the computer with malware, and users would soon see a number of pop up ads that would tell them that their computers had been infected by a virus. The ads further stated that the only way that the users could get rid of the virus was by buying the antivirus software for $129. This method managed to attack as many as 960,000 victims and robbed users of a combined total of $72 million.
The second criminal ring made use of a method of internet advertising referred to as malvertising. Two people established a fraud advertising agency and published an advert for a chain of hotels on the website of a Minneapolis newspaper. After the ad had been posted however, the duo proceeded to alter the code of the advertisement so that whenever a person clicked on the ad, his or her computer was infected with a malicious program that launched scareware. This scam ended up costing people a total of $2 million.
Cybercrime will only continue to evolve and worse. The time to proof up your employees against cybercrime is now; the means is with Internet security awareness training. Take a free Internet security phishing test!
Operation Trident Tribunal, the code name for the effort, managed to apprehend the cybercriminals, who had gained control over a million computers worldwide and had collected as much as $74 million.
The first of the two crime rings was involved with a scam that redirected users to a site that offered a virus scan for free. The site however would infect the computer with malware, and users would soon see a number of pop up ads that would tell them that their computers had been infected by a virus. The ads further stated that the only way that the users could get rid of the virus was by buying the antivirus software for $129. This method managed to attack as many as 960,000 victims and robbed users of a combined total of $72 million.
The second criminal ring made use of a method of internet advertising referred to as malvertising. Two people established a fraud advertising agency and published an advert for a chain of hotels on the website of a Minneapolis newspaper. After the ad had been posted however, the duo proceeded to alter the code of the advertisement so that whenever a person clicked on the ad, his or her computer was infected with a malicious program that launched scareware. This scam ended up costing people a total of $2 million.
Cybercrime will only continue to evolve and worse. The time to proof up your employees against cybercrime is now; the means is with Internet security awareness training. Take a free Internet security phishing test!
