Rogue Ware

ROGUE WARE

Rogue (vagrant)

The word "rogue" was first recorded in print in John Awdeley’s Fraternity of Vagabonds (1561), and then in Thomas Harman’s Caveat for Common Cursitors (1566).
The 1572 Vagabond Act defined a rogue as a healthy person who has no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source of income; it included rogues in the class of idle vagrants or vagabonds.

If a person was apprehended as a rogue, he would be stripped to the waist, whipped until bleeding, and a hole "about the compass [circumference] of an inch" would be burned through the cartilage of his right ear. A rogue who committed a second offence, unless taken in by someone who would give him work for one year, could face execution as a felon. A third-offence perpetrator would only escape death if someone hired him for two years.

The 1598 Vagabond Act banished and transplanted "incorrigible and dangerous rogues" overseas, and the 1604 Act commanded that rogues be branded with the letter "R" on their bodies. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Now comes a New age, in the year 2007 a fine young group of Russian saboteurs developed and released whats known as the first largest Rogue program known to the technological industry. Thus in my opinion changing the old terms of Rogue to the modern day "Rogue Ware."

The first release was call Windows Anti-virus, which to truly understand this development, you should probably know what this program is and does.

Well in this case a Rogue is very much like a TRICKSTER or the Wolf in Sheep's clothing if you will. It disguises itself as a normal regular run of the mill, Windows or other trusted company attachment or download. Even tries to fool us into believing it is going to scan our computers for malicious stuff and free us from the diseases of the technological world.

We click on it thinking its a WINDOWS program and run it to see what it has to say. The fancy little thing runs a scan (or so it seems) on your computer.

YOU HAVE 1,366,589,254 infections.

Well, we don't want that (Panic sets in), CLICK HERE. We do and then the program downloads and installs itself onto your computer. You clicking on it allows it to bypass your ANTI-Virus program and your Spy ware Protection.

You just invited the Vampire into your own house and have rendered all your security software POWERLESS. You are now at the mercy of the Rogue of the Century. Now maybe you don't realize this yet, wait it's going to let me remove this stuff. You click and it scans again.

Same result: YOU HAVE 1,366,589,254 infections. CLICK here to Clean and remove.

You do and it is now asking for $49.95, $69.95, $99.95, $199.95 ... Yes the numbers go up. Pay this amount and we will remove the infections from your computer. So you argue with yourself, and then once you try to access files on your computer and can't you realize- WOW, I am infected, I better pay them, they seem to have caught this stuff and my other Anti-Virus hasn't, these guys have to be much better at what they do. So you click, and you pay.

Things are fixed. Then a month later, it pops up again. Same old story. Over and over and over again. This group of developers made 2.5 billion dollars in 2007, more than any other Anti-virus company in the world. We can't stop them because of international laws and regulations, and hey you "clicked" and said "yeah bill my credit card", and they are in untouchable sitting in Russia.

OK, so what really happened? Well you have been a target of Rogue Ware, and now they have become more and more skilled at attaching themselves to your machine and causing damage. The first versions were pretty easy if you knew what you were looking for. Then came the better ones, Windows Anti-Virus (with a Windows logo on it), then Anti-Virus 2008 and then the newer and harder to find and remove Anti-Virus 2009. And there are several others.

The fact is these are not Anti-Virus programs at all, they are file LOCKING programs. When they first attach to you they enter a Registry key into your machine. They then have partial control already and if you don't know what your doing its about to become a wild ride.

The second thing it does is begin to LOCK your system files through this Reg Key, so that you can not access files and data. Usually the C: Drive and other system files and if you try you'll get an error "You do not have access to this file."

You are now infected. Then of course they run their FAKE little virus scan and you think - wow look at all that stuff. It's not a real scan, matter of fact it is just like a movie or flash video of a REAL scan, if you have encountered this on other peoples machines, you'll see the VIDEO of the scan is the same on every computer it touches, as well as the end result in what viruses you have and how many. All a very nice act or deception.

You pay the FEE, and they UNLOCK your computer files. Hey look! They fixed my computer! These guys are better than my other stuff I have that didn't even detect these things. WRONG.

It's all a lie. To get your money. And believe it or not, it is on a rotation loop and in a month or two it will pop up again, doing the same thing. Because you WELCOMED it into your machine, your security software won't even detect it. I have talked to people that bragged about having this as their protection software - It is really hard to not laugh. They had been paying these guys for months, before I told them the real deal. If you get this pop up, and you think you can there are some tools available to scan for it at MALWAREBYTES here.

WARNING: These guys are inventive and have even worked their way around most security systems. This includes the site link above as it was tested yesterday and didn't detect or remove it. These guys are smart and will do anything to maintain that 2.5 billion dollar income off of uninformed American and European Internet users. Figure they will create new ones that are bigger and badder and better, and even harder to find and remove. Invest in BACK-up systems like external Hard Drives (HDD) and Flash Drives, and if you get this infection and don't know how to fix the issue, don't fiddle with it - contact a technician.

Good luck! leave comments below and let me know what you think- or request other topics for me to write about. I'd love to hear from you!