14 DAY TRIAL // Cybercriminals were bound to take notice of the increase in popularity of Microsoft Security Essentials, and fact is that at just one year since release there are various fake AV masquerading as MSE.
Some users might have already have been unfortunate enough to come across rogue antivirus labeled Security Essentials 2010 or Security Essentials 2011.
Neither Security Essentials 2010 nor Security Essentials 2011 have anything to do with Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 or Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0.
Both examples of rogue AV are detected by Microsoft security solutions as variations of the Fakeinit malicious code.
The software giant detects three separate threats, namely: Rogue:HTML/Fakeinit, Rogue:Win32/Fakeinit and Win32/Fakeinit.
The company has used additional labels for the scareware in the past, such as TrojanDownloader: Win32/Fakeinit, Trojan:Win32/Fakeinit, Trojan:HTML/Fakeinit.A, and TrojanDownloader:HTML/Fakeinit, but now its sticking with the three mentioned in the above paragraph.
“- Rogue:HTML/Fakeinit is a detection for an HTML page utilized by Win32/Fakeinit. It displays a fake warning message reporting that the user's computer is infected with spyware,” Microsoft stated.
“- Rogue: Win32/Fakeinit is a trojan that displays fake warnings of "malicious programs and viruses", and informs the user that they need to pay money to register the software to remove these non-existent threats.
It also has a Layered Service Provider component that blocks access to Web pages from certain domains,” the software giant explained.
“- Win32/Fakeinit is a family of trojans that display fake warnings of “malicious programs and viruses”, and inform the user that they need to pay money to register the software to remove these non-existent threats,” the company added.
“A trojan within this family consists of a downloader component and a fake scanner component. The downloader terminates certain processes, lowers security settings, changes the desktop background, and attempts to download other malware such as Trojan:Win32/Alureon.CT. It also has a Layered Service Provider component that blocks access to webpages from certain domains.”
Users should always keep in mind that MSE is offered free of charge for customers with genuine versions of Windows.
The Redmond company has not asked users to pay for licenses of Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 and will not require them to pay in order to use MSE 2.0.
MSE 1.0 can be leveraged not only by home users, but also by small businesses on up to 10 computers, free of charge.
Security Essentials 2010 and Security Essentials 2011 should be avoided at all costs, especially since “this threat may make lasting changes to a computer’s configuration that are NOT restored by detecting and removing this threat,” according to Microsoft.
Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 is still in Beta, with the company working to finalize the next iteration of its free security solution for Windows.
Microsoft Security Essentials is available for download here.