Tue Nov 17, 2009 2:09PM EST
In case you're not part of the lovesick teen-promise ring set, the second film in the Twilight series, New Moon, arrives in theaters this Friday, and its slobbering audience is desperate for any kind of taste it can get of the wildly anticipated movie. Any Harry Potter nerd will tell you the same thing.
But fanatical franchises like this invariably lead to danger, as fans let their guard down, exposing themselves -- and their computers -- to risky situations.
A new Twilight scam making the rounds and exposed by PC Tools, isn't a whole lot different from the usual M.O., but here's a primer on how it works.
It all begins with a web search: Users search for "Stephenie Meyer" (a misspelling of the name of the author of the Twilight books) on the web, and find (rather high) in the results a link to a result reading "Stephanie Meyer at 365Multimedia.com," with the description "Stephenie Meyer interview on Twilight the movie starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart."
Sounds harmless enough, but 365Multimedia.com doesn't actually host interviews (it's a desktop background and screensaver website), and the link in question doesn't actually go there either. Instead, users are directed to a malicious website that takes that age-old scareware path: A pop-up alerts users that they are infected with some sort of malware, and then directs them to a download site so they can get a phony antivirus software product to remedy the issue.
At that point, the user is asked for his credit card number, additional malware is installed on the machine, and Robert Pattinson is nowhere to be found. Now that sucks. (Bites? Pick your own favorite vampire reference...)
The good news is that most anti-malware software should protect you from actually falling prey to this scam even if you do click on the link, but do keep in mind that extra vigilance is in order when getting information about especially popular topics (remember that Anna Kournikova had her own virus at one time) and when visiting sites you've never heard of.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/154852/new-malware-attack-targets-twilight-fans/
In case you're not part of the lovesick teen-promise ring set, the second film in the Twilight series, New Moon, arrives in theaters this Friday, and its slobbering audience is desperate for any kind of taste it can get of the wildly anticipated movie. Any Harry Potter nerd will tell you the same thing.
But fanatical franchises like this invariably lead to danger, as fans let their guard down, exposing themselves -- and their computers -- to risky situations.
A new Twilight scam making the rounds and exposed by PC Tools, isn't a whole lot different from the usual M.O., but here's a primer on how it works.
It all begins with a web search: Users search for "Stephenie Meyer" (a misspelling of the name of the author of the Twilight books) on the web, and find (rather high) in the results a link to a result reading "Stephanie Meyer at 365Multimedia.com," with the description "Stephenie Meyer interview on Twilight the movie starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart."
Sounds harmless enough, but 365Multimedia.com doesn't actually host interviews (it's a desktop background and screensaver website), and the link in question doesn't actually go there either. Instead, users are directed to a malicious website that takes that age-old scareware path: A pop-up alerts users that they are infected with some sort of malware, and then directs them to a download site so they can get a phony antivirus software product to remedy the issue.
At that point, the user is asked for his credit card number, additional malware is installed on the machine, and Robert Pattinson is nowhere to be found. Now that sucks. (Bites? Pick your own favorite vampire reference...)
The good news is that most anti-malware software should protect you from actually falling prey to this scam even if you do click on the link, but do keep in mind that extra vigilance is in order when getting information about especially popular topics (remember that Anna Kournikova had her own virus at one time) and when visiting sites you've never heard of.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/154852/new-malware-attack-targets-twilight-fans/
But thanks for the heads up anyway. I will pass this one on to other Twilight loving freaks that I know. 
Plus... I don't google Twilight... Much... But I think I'm good, have computer techy knowledge to work with! 
Especially to all the Twilighters... That's just mean!
Now maybe the number of twilight idiots will decrease a little. (im talkin about full blown out retards that dress up like them and have a whole room dedicated to them and basically worship the characters and the author. Im not talkin about the normal people that just read the book. Just as long as they are not talkin about it all the time or going to watch the movie anything.) And I am VERY glad they targeted the twilight 'free movie download' people and the people who want to keep searching for more twilight bowlcrap. If this continues, maybe the twilight stuff will come to a screeching halt and then everyone will finally start to read something good for once. but the world is too screwed up right now to even realize that this series is garbage. Maybe one day, the world will be what it once was during the early 2000's and before. A man can dream, can he not? 
) Malware sucks, ill give you that. But these guys are probably just as sick of hearing about twilight as I am. Still, there is no need to create a virus for it. Just start putting in fake URL's so people will stop searching for it and stuff. There is no need to get mad at me you two. (and just so you know, i never use google, or look up anything related to NASCAR. and that is because I use ask.com or bing for my searches and nascar.com to find out everything I need to know.