It seems lately that all of my friends, family and clients have come to me with a machine infected with rouge Security software.  I spoke with a friend of mine who is in software engineering, who told me he had 6 laptops strewn out across his desk each with a different rouge security software infection.  Rogue security software, or "scareware," is software that pretends to be legitimate security software. These rogue applications provide little or no value and may even install malicious code or reduce the overall security of the computer.  It installs and pops up false warnings and alerts, urging you to puchase their software to remove them. Unsuspecting users usually end up purchasing the same virus infecting their computer.

    According to a new report (PDF) from Symantec: the company’s new Report on Rogue Security software says that in the year between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009 Symantec received a whopping 43 million reports of attempted installations of fake security programs.  And the future looks bleak as well. It is predicted that the sheer number of rouge security software will escalate quickly. The APWG's (Anti-Phishing Working Group) numbers for the first half of the year show that the organization’s members detected 485,000 samples, more than five times the total for the whole of 2008. 

It has gotten so big that Microsoft has taken notice of the trend, so much that most of their December's version of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) they have dedicated to targeting rouge security. So now that the big companies are involved, it should be stamped out soon, right? Well, not really. Even when actions are taken against these companies they seldom influence them to shut down completely. “TrafficConverter.biz was forced offline at the end of November, but it was resurrected just a few days later at TrafficConverter2.biz. The site to this day boasts at least 500 active affiliates, all pushing a new rogue product called Antivirus360.”-(Washington Post)

    There are a couple free tools out there that can be used to pry these applications out of your computer, but sadly it is never easy. Google has plenty of links on how to remove your particular flavor of rogue security software. But here is a list to get you started and hopefully keep you and your data protected.

Free tools to clean your computer:

• Super Anti Spyware
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
• Spybot Search and Destroy

A list of known rogue security software can be found here, courtesy of Wikipedia.

      Print media seems to be on the ropes these days, writhing against the information super highway.  Let's face it, not many people can see their dog fetching the morning laptop and slippers. But a vast majority of people in the  workplace do start their day chasing down headlines and news stories on their computer. Print media is up against blogs, wiki's, podcasts, and forums. Audio books are gaining popularity, with the advent of sites like iTunes and Amazon.com.   Add the fact that more and more people do their research  online rather use the library, and it paint a rather dim future for the print  media industry. 
"Most techies have also been getting tech news from sites like Slashdot  for a while, and aggregators like Digg are used more heavily  among techies than any in the rest of the news media. So there is a good chance, that today’s tech news trends are a foretaste of what’s ahead for the broader media world."- Jovan Washinginton (thetechbrief.com)
      And now with the recent "green" push, there is more pressure brought to bear on the world of print media. It would seem like the  written word has seen it's day and it's fate sealed. Only that every computer you buy has written instuctions on how to set it up and operate it! (I guess irony will never go out of style )
Paper has always had a portable advantage over it electronic breatheren, requiring only light to use it. But with portable electronics on the rise, the gap has shortened considerably.
      So the internet brings to the table speed, environmental friendliness, and free expression while print media will always have a certain charm and warmth that the internet will never have.