Tech support scam page triggers denial-of-service attack on Macs
Tech support scammers have been using various themes to push fake alerts to scare users into calling for assistance. These fall into the ‘browlock’ category if they are via the browser and into the screen lockers category if they are actual malware that runs on the system. Recently, there has been a trend for scammers to cause…
A closer look at a tech support screen locker
In this blog post, we are going to take a closer look at some of the code that the most predominant family of tech support screen lockers are currently using to frustrate their victims. This, which is dubbed VinCE because of the Program folder it creates for itself, is compiled in Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL),…
Tech support scammers abuse bug in HTML5 to freeze computers
One of the primary vectors for the distribution of tech support scams is malvertising. You’ll simply be browsing the web when all of a sudden your browser shows a scary page claiming your computer is infected. Behind the scenes, an unscrupulous ad network usually lets a malicious actor push a malicious code snippet instead of…