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Malware Purveyors Paying Third Parties to Distribute Infections

by Terrence O'Brien on February 4, 2010 at 02:25 PM


Affiliate programs are nothing new to online retailers; but, now, distributors of malware are taking that model and offering "pay per install" programs, rewarding immoral Web users for installing pieces of malware on other people's computers.

The practice was described to attendees of the Black Hat DC conference by Kevin Stevens, an analyst at SecureWorks. Sites like Earnings4U are paying anywhere from $180 (for U.S.-based PCs) to $6 (for machines in Asia) for every 1,000 installs. According to Technology Review, Stevens said such sites constantly change their names to avoid the authorities, and have forums loaded with advice and software tools for effectively spreading the infections.

One of the tricks that allows these middlemen to make significant amounts of cash off of the scam is to use a Trojan download manager. While this commercial piece of software costs hundreds of dollars up front, once a PC has been compromised, the tool can be used to load it with several different malware packages, each of which is counted individually. These programs can even be used to harvest data for finding more victim PCs.


Stevens claims that "pay per install" schemes are part of a multi-million dollar industry. It just goes to show that on the Internet, like in real life, there are people willing to do anything -- no matter how dishonest -- for a quick buck. [From: Technology Review]

Tags: malware, scam, schemes, security, trojan

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