Three Indicted In Scareware Scam That Netted $100M 120
alphadogg writes "Three men are facing federal fraud charges for allegedly raking in more than $100 million while running an illegal 'scareware' business called Innovative Marketing that tricked victims into installing bogus software. The company's products generated so many consumer complaints that in 2008 the FTC brought a civil action against Innovative Marketing and call center partner Byte Hosting, effectively putting them out of business. On Wednesday, a grand jury in Chicago handed down criminal charges, meaning the three men now face jail time if convicted." One of the men indicted is in Ohio and the others are believed to be in Ukraine and Sweden. Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit helped out with the case.
Re:Great news (Score:1, Insightful)
Whichever Microsoft group it is that puts together Security Essentials is working on that too.
Re:Fake AVs (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you do online banking on these machines afterwards?
Re:Fake AVs (Score:2, Insightful)
why would they bother installing linux, since they have a friend who is skilled and willing enough to clean it up for them?
i've been down this road too many times. i have now been forced to never offer "clean up" support for friends and family. it makes me sad, but it's the only way they learn : (
Re:Fake AVs (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I would absolutely trust an unstaller app provided with a malware "virus scanner". I think I'll cut out it's heart by my self, thank you very much.
Re:Fake AVs (Score:4, Insightful)
I had the same thing and luckily I had Process Explorer installed..
I'd be quite happy if the verdict came down to just shoot them. Seriously. I'm tired of this crap constantly trying to infect my computer and the crap emails I get every day. I'm careful and have only been infected twice ever, and the spam filters take care of most of the email, but seriously - how much effort is spent creating and then creating prevention for this crap??
Once convicted, summarily shoot them.