Computer and Software Scams.

Computer Clean-up scams.

Hundreds of computer staff crammed into the offices of
Innovative Marketing at Kiev Ukraine creating world’s most
pernicious and profitable computer virus.

Innovative Marketing was at the center of a corporate empire
with operations stretching from Eastern Europe to Bahrain,
from India to Singapore to the USA.

A researcher spent months studying the company’s operations
estimates that the business generated revenue of about US $ 180
million in 2008 selling programs into at least two dozen countries.

The company built its scare ware programs that pretend to scan
computer for virus and then misusing credit card information.

Scare ware or rogue ware has become one of the fastest growing
type of internet fraud. Some 35 million PCs worldwide are
infected with this malicious programs putting more than US $ 400
million in the hands of cyber criminals.

When victim pays the fee the virus appears to vanish but in most
cases the machine is infiltrated by other malicious program.
Hackers sell victim’s credit card credentials to other bidders.

PC owners running with Norton anti-virus software, when the PC
was attacked by Antispyware 2010, pop ups were constant, they
were layered one on top of the other and you couldn’t do anything.

It is like a sort of plague. It has to be fixed by deleting all data from
the hard drive and installing a fresh copy of Windows.
All stored data was lost.

A computer consultant who knew his way around technology ended up
junking his PC losing a week’s worth of data after an attack from an
Innovative marketing program dubbed as Windows XP anti-virus.

Some one thousand software consultants complained to the US Federal
Trade Commission about Innovative marketing software, prompting
an investigation and succeeded in retrieving US $ 163 million by settling
its charges against one of the defendants in the suit.

“These guys were the innovators and the biggest players with
its roots date back to 2002 and embezzled millions of dollars.”

Innovative Marketing was set up whose earlier products
included pirated CDs and pornography downloads and
illicit sale of Viagra on internet. It also sold gray market
versions of anti-virus software from Symantec and McAfee,
but had to get out of business in 2003 under pressure.

It built its own anti-virus software that hackers install on PCs
where they served pop up ads of all description.

Similarly the affiliate system has blossomed. A hacker needs to
register as an affiliate on an underground website and download
virus file coded with his ID and hijack legitimate websites
setting up corrupt sites to attack Face book or Twitter sites.
Anybody can be infected by going to legitimate site

A scare ware vendor inserted an ad in NYtimes website
disguised as internet phone company Vonage. It contaminated
hundreds of PCs.

In 2005 Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait cut off its ties with Innovative
Marketing subsidiary with high volume of credit card processing.
It then went for five months without a credit card processor bank.
They managed with Singapore DBS Bank to handle their account,
who processed millions of US $ in backlogged credit card payments.

Innovative Marketing then invested in call centers in Ukraine India, USA.
The rogue ware was designed to lure the customers to buy their PC clean-up
Software. When the customers complained, the result was in vain.
Police have limited success in cracking down on the scare ware industry.
They base their business where law permits or police look the other way.

It was USA only who made Innovative pay up US $163 million it had
scammed for Americans.