Several helpful people just pointed me to some articles on XP Antivirus and its various variants. In case you do not remember, XP Antivirus was the subject of an article I wrote for The Register a few months back.
It turns out that the scammers got hacked, and the hacker posted some internal accounting details on the web. As suspected, this is a sophisticated business making millions of dollars. It even appears to have an affiliate program.
In case you have not seen the articles yet, here are a few:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/30/technology/virus.php
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/security/russian-scammers-cash-in-on-popup-menace/2008/11/04/1225560814202.html
http://www.scmagazineuk.com/Hacker-reveals-Russian-software-company-behind-anti-virus-scam/article/120152/
Thanks to Marc Michault, Phillippe Jan, and Jason Grubè for all pointing me to articles on this topic.
Read the complete post at http://msinfluentials.com/blogs/jesper/archive/2008/11/07/xp-antivirus-in-the-news.aspx
Posted
Nov 07 2008, 04:05 AM
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Jesper's Blog