Bing Declares War on Rogue Antivirus

Users have a new ally in the fight against fake antivirus, with Microsoft offering them the chance to help block rogue AV at search engine level, before it actually gets to infect computers.

Essentially, the Redmond company is welcoming feedback from users on scareware, according to Navaneethan Santhanam, Program Manager, Bing.

The software giant’s search / decision engine already blocks scareware sites from being returned to user queries in results, but the company admits that it’s an awfully big web and that it can miss on a few pages.

When customers come across a malicious website that attempts to serve them a fake antivirus, they can report the URL to Microsoft and have Bing block the address.

“As Scareware is extremely transient, appearing and disappearing on sites very quickly, it is likely we may miss a few pages.

“You can help us by informing us of any pages that may appear to host scareware through our support form. In the drop-down list that specifies the problem, please select “Other”, fill out the remainder of the form and hit “submit”,” Santhanam explained.

Bing’s search mechanism is designed to cover not only drive-by downloads and social engineering attacks, but also malicious sites attempting to infect users with rogue antivirus.

As you might already know, fake AV is set up to trick victims into thinking that their machines are infected in order to pay for a license to have the rogue antivirus clean the PCs.

Obviously, the infection is nonexistent, just as fake as the scareware itself, and customers should not allow themselves to be tricked into paying a single cent for licenses.

“A Scareware site mimics the Windows Explorer background, displays a fake animation of a scan and then displays a list of viruses “infecting” the user’s computer, inviting the user to download their “anti-virus” product.

“Because Scareware sites can earn hundreds of millions annually, the number of domains hosting Scareware has shot up in the past year.

“This rapid growth, and the threat to infected users, has resulted in Bing starting to tackle how to handle sites when they are identified as being infected with, or are hosting Scareware,” Santhanam said.