Skype Users: Beware of Fake Antivirus Message

Everyone knows what a rogue antivirus is and how they work. For those who don’t know I’ll describe briefly.

Rogue/Fake antivirus is software which is installed automatically on your computer. These fake antivirus programs pretend to be real antivirus programs detecting multiple spyware, malware & virus threats on your computer. But reality is that they are in the market to make free money while doing nothing. Thing is a normal computer user fells for this quite often and loses money.

I’m a regular Skype user and I got a request from someone named “Update Registry” with a message.

This person simply tried to convince me that my computer has been affected by a malware and asked me to visit a website (Linked mentioned below). Upon visiting the given link a “Scan window” appeared and showed me the number of spywares & viruses on my computer.

Now the funny part is that they don’t even know the correct spelling of “Average” and they wrote it “Avarage” instead. This isn’t surprising at all because most of such programs are created by non-English people.

Here is the complete message:

WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

URGENT SYSTEM SCAN NOTIFICATION ! PLEASE READ CAREFULLY !!

updatecd.org/

For the link to become active, please click on ‘Add to contacts’ skype button or type it in manually into your web browser !

FULL DETAILS OF SCAN RESULT BELOW

****************************************

WINDOWS REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION

ATTENTION ! Security Center has detected malware on your computer !

Affected Software:

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Windows XP

Microsoft Windows 2000

Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Impact of Vulnerability: Remote Code Execution / Virus Infection /

Unexpected shutdowns

Recommendation: Users running vulnerable version should install a repair utility immediately

Your system IS affected, download the patch from the address below !

Failure to do so may result in severe computer malfunction.

updatecd.org/

For the link to become active, please click on ‘Add to contacts’ skype button or type it in manually into your web browser!

If you happen to come across such a message, DO NOT open the website and even if you do so DO NOT download the application. It might be a spyware to steal your private information.

Below is the screen shot of how a scan (On clicking the link) will look like:

Note that this isn’t my computer but the said website. So avoid downloading anything as this might be harmful to either your computer or your confidential/private data.