Fake Antivirus Software Case: Authorities pile up fresh charges against Susheel Jain
Fresh charges have been made on a scam involving selling of fake software online. The charges have been placed on Susheel Kumar Jain by federal agencies under a criminal lawsuit. They are related to the 2003 case in which Jain was accused of selling pirated copies of original software belonging to software giant Symantec Corp. If prosecutors succeed, the proceeds of $13 Million would top up a $3 Million dollar settlement Symantec Corp. had won in a civil suit against the accused in 2005.
In the fraud, Jain sold pirated software through his website and solicited customers online through emails and popup ads.
Scam lead buyers to believe they were getting original wares
Customers would get email from Jain’s website telling them that the registrations for their Norton Anti-Virus software are set to expire. Photographs of actual products on the emails and websites lead customers to believe they were getting the originals rather than pirated software. The scam also sold pirated copies of Norton’s popular SystemWorks software.
The business is estimated to have netted more than $13 Million dollars which the authorities are bent on recovering from the lawsuit.
No end to list of troubles victims of the scam may have been put to
Customers who bought anti-virus software from Jain may have had to endure many trials and tribulations. If they were not actually sued for using pirated software, their experiences may include any, most or all of these.
- In days of new viruses cropping up on an every-day basis, they might have endured countless virus attacks. The pirated software would be ill-equipped to handle these as it may not have received free Nortons updates on latest viruses that original software are entitled to.
- The victims would have missed out on free Nortons upgrades and patches for the product that regular users enjoy.
- The fakes may also have been fundamentally flawed and could have caused systems to crash on countless occasions. Users’ miseries would have been compounded because even if they had called, the product support would not have been available to them because of their unregistered status.
The fresh charges on Susheel Jain covering copyright infringement, illegal trafficking and others would be small consolation to glum victims of the scam.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
Using search engine optimization to promote web pages hosting malware shows increasing levels of sophistication and professionalism on the part of the criminals. The use of fake video players to disguise the installation of fake anti-virus programs is not new. This kind of activity has been going on for many months now, but previously the links have been promoted via spam. This new approach shows a diversification of tactics,