• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

Coimbatore June 6 Trend Micro, the security software and services company, today cautioned users about the rising incidence of `rogue security programs.'

Unlike other threats that burst onto the scene with high levels of infection, these programs "have steadily been on the rise," said a release.

Data from TrendLabs reveal that the incidence of such programs had shot up to over 10 per cent in March 2007 from about two per cent in early March 2006.

This threat aims to exploit the social engineering techniques for monetary rewards on the Web, the release said.

According to Trend Micro, the application stealthily enters and installs itself on a user's machine.

It then relentlessly warns the user about the PC being infected by some form of malware, when in reality no infection either exists or the malware is installed along with the downloaded rogue software.

In any case, the software operating as a `free trial' offers an upgrade for a fee with full functionality.

The program installs itself on the PC in more ways than one. For instance, malicious use of a Windows exploit would enable the malware author to sneak into the user's system and install, when the victim opens an e-mail or views a Web site, visits a site with video content and follows instruction for download.

Instead of downloading the video content, the rogue anti-spyware is downloaded.

More Stories on : Security | Software

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Cable landing stations to have open access

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line