IT Security: Welcome to Scam City: Rogue Anti-Spyware Apps

Don't get duped by bogus malware-removal tools.

by Brian Satterfield

By now, many of your company's employees may be aware of the spyware threat, as well as the importance of anti-spyware software. But not all anti-spyware applications are what they're cracked up to be. In fact, some programs are specifically designed to harm the very computers they claim to protect.

Welcome to the ugly world of so-called "rogue" anti-spyware applications: malicious programs that prey on unsuspecting users by leading them to believe they're actually installing a legitimate, helpful spyware-detection and -removal tool. Employees who fall for such a scam might think they're helping to bolster your company's security, when in reality they are doing the exact opposite.

Rogue anti-spyware applications can have a number of effects on a computer, ranging from the annoying to the disastrous. Such applications might produce false positives after a scan, either by branding a legitimate application as "spyware" or by discovering "spyware" that doesn't actually exist on the computer. In an even more unsettling scenario, a rogue application might actually install adware, spyware, Trojan horses or other dangerous components on the machine.

The anti-spyware market is a crowded space, making it somewhat difficult to differentiate applications that solve problems from those that create them. However, there are some ways to identify these harmful impostors before they infect your network's computers, as well as vanquish them should they accidentally sneak in.

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