“Oscar Winners” – beware malware

It’s Oscar season, and the winners have just been announced.

Malware writers have been active on the SEO front by making sure that, as well as the usual Oscar pictures and gossip, you might be getting more than you bargained for. It seems that, this Oscar season, fake “free scan” pages, offering to scan your computer for viruses, are the key “winner” in the malware fake av-solution war. These fakes are even worse that just straight malware, because they pretend to offer to fix non-existent problems, take your money, potentially putting your credit card details at risk AND download more malware, masquerading as antivirus software. This scareware tactic is becoming a common way for malware writers to both gain access to funds and your computer.

As ever, take care when following any link, particularly when to a site you are not familiar with. And make sure your antivirus and anti-spyware are always on and up-to-date.