Antivirus XP 2008 scam-ware spreading

Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen a lot of discussions in the Internet newsgroups and forums asking about Antivirus XP 2008 or Antivirus 2009, though I believe this is also called other things. It is being labeled "malware" though I prefer to call it 'scam-ware' because you get it by clicking on a pop-up which then announces that your computer is infected with viruses or spyware. Another trick from these scammers is that they give you a pop-up telling you that you have an unlicensed version of Antivirus XP 2008 on your computer and that you now have become infected, and then asks you to pay for it so that you can continue to get the protection.

Scared users then ask it to clean up the spyware at which point it then asks you to pay up to $49 and then it pretends to scan your hard disk and "clean" it. Of course, the software does nothing. While no one reading my blog is probably going to fall for this scam, please warn your friends and families about this threat.

I did have a friend's computer that was infected with this little jewel and I had to run both Spybot AND STOPzilla to get it cleaned up completely. For the more technically inclined, I just read The Essentials Series: Modern Malware Threats and Countermeasures from Realtimepublishers and it was provided a good explanation of some modern threats, terminology, and technology behind modern spyware.