In the ever-expanding world of misleadingapplications, you might wonder how each new application can stand outfrom the crowd and get itself noticed. Browsing the Web sites of someof these applications shows that most employ some form of socialengineering to persuade potential customers to purchase their products.This social engineering ranges from the subtle language of persuasionto bold warnings concerning your personal and online safety.
The most common social engineering used on these Web sites tells usthat just about every online activity is certain to bring spyware andother unwanted pests to your door. Downloading music from the web seemsto be the biggest culprit in this area:
IM chatting, online banking, and email activity are also frequently cited as being certain sources of spyware:
The world of misleading applications (aka"rogue antispyware") never ceases to amaze with clever socialengineering and tricks to con and persuade users into parting withtheir hard-earned cash. We have recently noticed a sharp increase inthe number of these applications. One example we came across recentlythat is really contributing to the trend is called AVSystemCare.
This misleading application is unique in two ways:
- It uses a clever trick that makes it easy to generate an endless amount of clones that while looking and behaving the same, are named differently. - It offers localized versions in numerous languages.
AVSystemCare uses a clever trick to allow all of its clones to useidentical files, but yet have different names. Installing any of theseclones involves downloading a small file from the clone Web site. Whenthe user executes this file it will download the main...
