The other week a customer called us and asked for our assistance, they said that they had click on something in an email and that their computer has been acting strange ever since!

Upon further investigation we discovered that the person click on an attachment in an email that they received from UPS. The attachment was a zip file that harbored a malicious software script that immediately infected her computer. The malicious software was reporting multiple infections on her workstation and asking her click on another link to fix the problem. Fortunately the person was smart enough to turn off the computer and give us a call. Had he/she followed thru, they would have been asked for their credit card to purchase a piece of software that would remove the infections.

This infection is known as AntiVirus 2009.

Antivirus 2009 is a new rogue anti-spyware program. It is also a clone of Antivirus 2008 – also a rogue, and one that’s produced more clones than any other recently. The list of these clones is long: System Antivirus 2008, Ultimate Antivirus 2008, Vista Antivirus 2008, XP Antivirus 2008 etc.

Like any other of it’s predecessors, Antivirus2009 uses trojans, such as Zlob or Vundo, to spread. These trojans lurk in porn/warez websites disguised as video codecs, and, upon entering the system, floods the user with popups and fake system notifications, supposedly to inform him of an infection. While the system at hand may indeed be infected, Antivirus 2009 will inform the user of this regardless of whether it’s true or not. The point of this disinformation is to convince the user he is infected and therefore needs an antispyware program to dispose of the threat. The user might click on one of the popups or notifications, all of which claim they will take him to a legitimate security tool, but try to make him purchase Antivirus2009′s “licensed version” instead. Antivirus2009 may redirect web browser to antivirus-premium-scan.com, webscannertools.com, googlescanners-360.com, livesecurityinfo.com, antivirusonlivescan.com, bestantivirusscan.com, antivirus-best.com, internetquarantinesite.com, premiumlivescan.com and secureclick1.com websites that sell the malware. Some of these website are not only fraudulent, but they are also malicious. they are capable of installing additional malwares.

Antivirus 2009 is a scam and should be treated as such: do NOT download or buy it and block it’s websites using your HOSTS file: Webscannertools.com

Here is what it looks like 
If you search the WEB you will find many solutions that say it can be fixed, but the truth is the only way to recover 100% from this backup your data and re install windows and all of your applications. This is a time consuming project and can take anywhere from 2 to 4 hours for a professional to complete.

So the real cost of spam is 2 to 4 hours of labor and no computer for a day or two.

The cost of prevention is always less that the cost or the repair!

Want to prevent this sort of thing, call or email me at 604-925-8106 x2 or peter@acsl.ca

Is this you?

• Every day when you arrive at work you spend the first 15 or 20 minutes going thru last night’s email and delete all of the spam.
• You even have to review all of the messages in your Junk E-mail folder! Because you do not trust your current e-mail spam filtering service.

Do you know how much this is costing you in time, lost productivity and money. Well let’s do a quick evaluation of the cost of your people powered spam solution. If you spend 15 minutes in the morning manually filtering your spam and another 10 minutes throughout the day, which is probably very conservative and if you are paid $15.00 per hour (once again very conservative), then here is the math to determine the cost.

The cost of a people powered spam filtering service!

$15.00/hour X 0.25(25 minutes per day) = $3.75 per day or $75.00 per month (based upon 20 working days per month)

Now multiply this by 10 employees, $750.00 per month or $9,000.00 per year!  This does not take into account the lost productivity!

WOW, that’s a lot of money!

If you really want to save some money and create a working environment for your employees that has less stress. Then give me a call!

I have a solution!

Statistics and Facts About Spam

Spam accounts for 14.5 billion messages globally per day. In other words, spam makes up 45% of all emails. Some research companies estimate that spam email makes up an even greater portion of global emails, some 73% in fact. The United States is the number one generator of spam email, with Korea clocking in as the second largest contributor of unwanted email.

The most prevalent type of spam is advertising 

related email; this type of spam accounts for approximately 36% of all spam messages. The second most common category of spam is adult-related in subject and makes up roughly 31.7% of all spam. Unwanted emails related to financial matters is the third most popular form of spam, at 26.5%.

Surprisingly, scams and fraud comprise only 2.5% of all spam email; however, identity theft (which is known as phishing) makes up 73% of this figure.

Because spam has inundated both the personal and corporate world of emailing, it has affected the way that individuals and companies feel about spam. In fact, surveys have found that spam has led to decreased public confidence and trust in Internet communications. A study conducted in 2005 found that 53% of people interviewed had lost confidence in communicating through email due to spam. However, this percentage dropped from 62% the year before.

Companies also find spam a troublesome problem that reduces productivity and safety. Fifty two percent of companies interviewed for a recent study listed minimizing spam as their top priority.

However, anti spam measures such as spam blockers provide some hope in the fight against unwanted email. In fact, MSN alone blocks some 2.4 billion spam emails every day.

The Costs of Spam: How Spam Affects Your Bottom Line

According to a study by the Radicati Research Group Inc., a research firm based in Palo Alto, California, spam costs businesses $20.5 billion annually in decreased productivity as well as in technical expenses. Nucleus Research estimates that the average loss per employee annually because of spam is approximately $1934.

Predictions for the future costs of spam don’t look any brighter. It is estimated that 58 billion junk emails will be sent every day within the next four years, a figure that will cost businesses some $198 billion annually.

However, some researchers believe that based on an estimated current cost of $49 annually per inbox, the total cost of spam for businesses will balloon to $257 billion per year if spam continues to flourish at its current rate.

Do you need a spam solutions, click on the following link to learn more about our spam solutions. Click Here

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Let us manage your information technology products!