Rogue antivirus scammers stole $150 Million: FBI

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 22 December 2009, 22:36 IST   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is aware of an estimated loss of more than $150 million to internet users, who have been victims of scareware scammers. According to a note posted by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the number doesn't reveal the full picture, because in a single year over 40 million people observed globally were victims of rogue antivirus scams. From a cybercriminal's perspective, the conversion rate of exposed and infected scareware users, looks much more favorable than the conversion rate of several users who clicked on a spam message, but purchased nothing, reports ZDNet. The estimated financial losses to customers caused by scareware, greatly exceeds the revenue generated by spam in general, which due to its large number is wrongly considered as a very profitable cybercrime effort. During 2009, scareware successfully matured as a fraud scheme and positioned itself as one of the most profitable monetization tactics applied by cybercriminals. Experts feel that the fraud tactic is prone to escalate in 2010 due to the fact that it's profitable and the business model has already been positioned as a cash cow in Cisco's Cybecrime Return on Investment Matrix.

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