Difference between revisions of "A-Fast Antivirus Scam"

Revision as of 21:49, 21 March 2011

A-Fast Antivirus is a rogue anti-spyware program that uses misleading methods to scare users into thinking that their computers are infected with malware. It uses javascript and css within your web browser, including MSIE and Firefox, to mimic another well known antivirus program. It has been dubbed "scareware" by some writers.

A web site has malicious javascript code that causes an interface to appear, mimicking a legitimate looking antivirus scanning software. If you click one of the popups it installs a rogue security application.

A-Fast is known by other names:

• Critical System Warning!
• Fast Windows Antivirus

Files

c:\Desktop\A-fast Antivirus.lnk

Folders

c:\ProgramFiles\A-fast

Registry entries

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\A-fast
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
  Value: DosableTaskMgr
  Data: 01, 00, 00, 00
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
  Value: fast
  Data: C:\Program Files\A-fast\A-fast.exe
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy\StandardProfileAuthorizedApplications\List
  Value: C:\Program Files\A-fast\A-fast.exe
  Data: C:\Program Files\A-fast\A-fast.exe:*:Enabled:afast
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Parameters\FirewallPolicy\StandardProfile\AuthorizedApplications\List
  Value: C:\Program Files\A-fast\A-fast.exe
  Data: C:\Program Files\A-fast\A-fast.exe:*:Enabled:afast

• See this article at Spyware.com.
• BleepingComputer.com http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-a-fast-antivirus

Example

There are more than one variants of A-Fast, so it may look slightly different depending on what version you encounter. The following is the version that I encountered. Although I didn't get infected, I proceeded enough to do some research and get some screen captures.

This is the popup you will encounter (Firefox Example) and you have no choices other than "OK". Here is where it is recommended you use Windows Task Manager and simply kill the web browser process to close your browser before anything is installed.

If you click OK on the dialog box above, you will see this Fake Antivirus scan. It is actually your web browser after being hijacked by Javascript and CSS to mimic the look of a legitimate antivirus application.

If you try to navigate away from the page or close the browser window another popup will urge you to proceed with the scan. Remember, these are ALL FAKE WARNINGS designed to scare you and trick you into allowing a virus to be installed on your system.