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Antivirus7

First posted on 12 March 2010.
Source: SecurityHome

Aliases :

Antivirus7 is also known as Trojan:Win32/FakeXPA (other).

Explanation :

Antivirus7 is a variant of Win32/FakeXPA - a family of programs that claims to scan for malware and displays fake warnings of €œmalicious programs and viruses€. They then inform the user that they need to pay money to register the software in order to remove these non-existent threats. Some members of the Win32/FakeXPA family may also download additional malware and have been observed in the wild downloading variants of Win32/Alureon. Special Note:
Reports of Rogue Antivirus programs have been more prevalent as of late. These are programs that generate misleading alerts and false detections in order to convince users to purchase illegitimate security software. Some of these programs, such as Trojan:Win32/Antivirusxp and Program:Win32/FakeRednefed may display product names or logos in an apparently unlawful attempt to impersonate Microsoft products. These products may represent themselves as €œAntivirus XP€, €œAntivirusXP 2008€, €œWinDefender 2008€, €œXP Antivirus€, or similar. Use Microsoft Windows Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials, the Windows Live safety scanner, or another up-to-date scanning and removal tool to detect and remove this threat and other unwanted software from your computer. For more information on Microsoft security products, see http://www.microsoft.com/protect/products/computer/default.mspx.
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Antivirus7 is a variant of Win32/FakeXPA - a family of programs that claims to scan for malware and displays fake warnings of €œmalicious programs and viruses€. They then inform the user that they need to pay money to register the software in order to remove these non-existent threats. Some members of the Win32/FakeXPA family may also download additional malware and have been observed in the wild downloading variants of Win32/Alureon. Win32/FakeXPA has been distributed with many different names. The name used by the malware, the user interface and other details vary to reflect each variant€™s individual branding. The following details describe Win32/FakeXPA when it is distributed with the name Antivirus7.

Installation
The following system changes may be made by Win32/FakeXPA when distributed as Antivirus7.The installer creates the following files:

%PROGRAM_FILES%\AV7\antivirus7.exe

%COMMON_STARTMENU%\AV7\Antivirus7.lnk

%DESKTOPDIRECTORY%\Antivirus7.lnk

The following modifications are made to the registry (for example): Sets value: "AV7"
With data: "%PROGRAM_FILES%\AV7\antivirus7.exe"
To subkey: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Payload Displays false/misleading malware alerts When run, the malware performs a fake scan of the system, and falsely claims that a number of files on the system are infected with malware. Should users request that it clean the reported infections, it advises them that they need to pay money to register the program in order for it to do so. Please see below for examples of interface, fake alerts, false scanning results, and pop-ups used by Win32/FakeXPA when distributed as Antivirus7.













Analysis by Hamish O'Dea

Last update 12 March 2010

 

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