In all seriousness, I was pretty furious at whatever idiot allowed that advertisement to grace his or her webpage. And before someone suggests that perhaps it was my fault for not recognizing a fake Windows warning, I might add that I was in a hurry to get to class in thirty minutes and I did not notice that the stuff had popped up in my browser. So I thought, what the heck, better get rid of those 38 (yeah right) Trojan horses! And in fewer than ten minutes, my computer starts attacking itself, even in Safe Mode. Eventually I repaired the problem by restoring the system back to last night's status, when I downloaded Quicktime so I could watch a video as I enjoyed my Taco Bell dinner, but that is beside the point. Anyway, doesn't this look at least halfway legitimate?
I'm certain that this fake ad and others like it have fooled many old people, inexperienced computer users, and absent-minded college kids like myself. The last thing these kinds of folks need is a scammer sapping their money and resources, what with the cost of Cialis and Lipitor...and textbooks. For the record, the name of the program that I fell for like a dummy--yes, I will continue to hassle myself over this--is "MS Removal Tool," and if the cyber-criminals who steamed this one up ever get caught and prosecuted, you can be sure I will be mailing them a few bags of various animal waste products when they get settled in the state pen. Jerks.
- Heather
Man, the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago. And the one I got looked incredibly real; the icons for it in my taskbar even mimicked the antivirus I was already using, so I couldn't distinguish it from anything else. Fortunately I didn't lose any information, but it did take up a TON of space on my computer. It must fool anybody who isn't particularly computer-savvy. :(
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