On September 18th, 2013, the FBI posted a warning about a new virus known as Beta Bot on their Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) website. Because the method of attack is so convincing, I feel it important to make sure that you are all aware of what to look out for when browsing the web. Similar to some of the fake antivirus malware, you are presented with an extremely official looking recreation of a Microsoft message window. Typically, you will see a User Account Control window like the one below, asking for permission to allow a program to make changes to your computer.
If you see this type of box open up and you did not open the program the message says wants to make changes to your computer do not click the box. Immediately shut down your computer and reboot in safe mode. Once in Safe Mode, do a full system scan with your antivirus software.
If you have already been infected with Beta Bot it will disable your antivirus software and may prevent you from being able to access any antivirus web sites. Beta Bot logs data from your computer including log-in user names and passwords to financial sites and social media like Facebook. Beta Bot is spread from compromised websites, USB flash drives, and over Skype. If you plug in any flash drives to your system while it is infected, those drives need to be scanned and should be formatted to make sure they are not infected. If you are attacked by this malware and are not comfortable doing things like booting into safe mode and running antivirus scan, then I recommend calling an IT professional like myself to scan the computer and verify the infection has been removed.