Windows 10 security: Are ads in Microsoft's own apps pushing fake malware alerts?

By -

 Windows 10 users say they're being targeted by fraudsters through ads being delivered to Microsoft's apps.

Windows 10 users are complaining of being targeted by fraudsters through in-app ads delivered through Microsoft's own software. 


The fraudulent apps are being delivered through native Windows 10 applications like the Microsoft News app, according to Windows-focused site Ghacks. 

Much like online ads promoting tech-support scams, the in-app ads are using bogus system alerts to warn users of non-existent security threats and other issues.

The example Ghacks noticed claims that a PC is infected with multiple viruses and contains a warning that "personal and banking information is at risk". The ad then encourages users to click a 'Scan now' button, which likely leads to a phishing page or will download unwanted software. 

Other scam ads appearing in Microsoft apps claim that the viewer of the ad has won a new iPhone while other ads ask users to participate in a survey. Both types of fraudulent ads encourage the user to click the button and either give up their data or download unwanted software. 

The fraudulent ads were first spotted by German Windows site Borncity. According to complaints on Microsoft's answers site, the fraudulent ads are also coming through Microsoft Games. 

A warning in German on Microsoft's answers forum explains that "there is an increase in the number of malicious banner ads that open fraudulent web pages in the standard browser when starting or using apps on Windows 10".

"These websites either promise winnings in a competition or threaten to infect your PC with viruses. Both are nonsense."

Using ads with scary messages to convince victims to install malware is an old trick, but this case is notable since the scam ads are being delivered by Microsoft's own ad-supported apps. 

A Latvian national was jailed last year for a similar scam targeting users initially through a US news website. The ads led to fraudulent websites that would install scareware on victims' computers, displaying fake Windows support pop-ups and messages aimed at convincing people to buy antivirus.   

The fraudulent ads in this case aren't examples of locally installed scareware, which Microsoft has attempted to address with a Windows Defender policy introduced last year to tackle free versions of program that claim to find errors on a computer and then scare victims into buying the premium version.  

If the program uses alarming or coercive messages, Windows Defender classifies it as unwanted software and will remove it.  

Tech-support scammers last year also flooded Microsoft's TechNet portal with fraudulent pages to boost the chances of their scam ads appearing higher in search results on Google and Microsoft Bing. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Hacker steals data of millions of Bulgarians, emails it to local media

By -
Image
  Source of the data breach appears to be the country's National Revenue Agency A mysterious hacker has stolen the personal details of millions of Bulgarians and has emailed download links to the stolen data to local news publications. The data's origin is believed to be the country's National Revenue Agency (NRA), a department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. In a  message posted on its website  on Monday, the NRA said it was working with the Ministry of the Interior and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) to investigate the hack. "We are currently verifying whether the data is real," said the NRA. Hours after this article's publication, the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior  confirmed the hack . HACKER STOLE 110 DATABASES, LEAKED 57 According to reports from local media [ 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ], who received part of the data, the hacker said they stole the personal details of over five million Bulgarians, of the country's total ...
Read more

​Linux totally dominates supercomputers

By -
Image
It finally happened. Today, all 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux. Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list . Today it finally happened:  All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux . The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the  November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list . Overall, China now leads the supercomputing race with 202 computers to the US' 144. China also leads the US in aggregate performance. China's supercomputers represent 35.4 percent of the Top500's flops, while the US trails with 29.6 percent. With an anti-science regime in charge of the government, America will only continue to see its technological lead decline. When the  first Top500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993 , Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its masc...
Read more

Microsoft tries to stem its self-made collaboration-tool confusion

By -
Image
Microsoft is using this week's Ignite conference to try to help clarify its collaboration-tool strategy. Here's how SharePoint, Teams and Yammer figure in the mix. Choice is good. But too much choice, especially when it comes to collaboration tools, has been a problem for Microsoft. This isn't news to customers, partners or Microsoft execs themselves. But at the company's Ignite IT Pro conference in Orlando this week, Microsoft execs took a step to try to clarify the company's strategy and messaging in this area. Microsoft Office 365 Marketing chief Ron Markezich kicked off the conference this week with a slide entitled "Microsoft 365 Teamwork: Where to Start a Conversation." That slide attempts to do what  Microsoft initially attempted with a 60-plus-page whitepaper : Clarify which collaboration tools customers should use when. The slide, which features SharePoint -- and its files, sites and content storage at the center -- is broken down into t...
Read more