WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

Tens of millions of U.S. computers are loaded with scam security
software that their owners may have paid for but which only makes the
machines more vulnerable, according to a new Symantec report on cybercrime.

Cyberthieves are increasingly planting fake security alerts that pop up
when computer users access a legitimate website. The "alert" warns them
of a virus and offers security software, sometimes for free and
sometimes for a fee.
"Lots of times, in fact they're a conduit for attackers to take over
your machine," said Vincent Weafer, Symantec's vice president for
security response.

"They'll take your credit card information, any personal information you've entered there and they've got your machine," he said, referring to some rogue software's ability to rope a users' machine into a botnet, a network of machines taken over to send spam or worse.

Symantec found 250 varieties of scam security software with legitimate
sounding names like Antivirus 2010 and SpywareGuard 2008, and about 43
million attempted downloads in one year but did not know how many of
the attempted downloads succeeded, said Weafer.
"In terms of the number of people who potentially have this in their machines, it's tens of millions," Weafer said.

It was also impossible to tell how much cyberthieves made off with but
"affiliates" acting as middlemen to convince people to download the
software were believed to earn between 1 cent per download and 55 cents.
TrafficConverter.biz,which has been shut down, had boasted that its top affiliates earned as much as $332,000 a month for selling scam security software, according to Weafer.
"What surprised us was how much these guys had tied into the whole affiliated model," Weafer said. "It was more refined than we anticipated."

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Gunna Dickson)

sumber : Yahoo...

ya aku selalu jumpa benda macam ni, kalau tak menipu, benda tu sendiri yang bagi masuk virus "backdoor". aku tak pernah percaya ikhlan AV free atau pun berbayar, semua tu ada benda di sebaliknya. sekarang ni pun popup semakin berleluasa macam dulu.. asal klik ja timbul benda tu..

anyway good info