Beware of fake "Security Essentials 2010"!

Microsoft has warned its users of a fake antivirus software called Security Essentials 2010. As the original blog post by Microsoft’s David Wood goes,

Well, it had to happen eventually. One of the oldest tricks used by rogue antivirus products is to use a similar name as, or have a similar look and feel to, legitimate security software. It’s been commonplace for them to mimic the Windows Security Center. So it was inevitable that the day would arrive when a rogue would masquerade as something similar to Microsoft Security Essentials. If anything, it surprises me a little that it’s taken so long.

The software is actually a trojan called Win32/Fakeinit. If it is installed, a fake scanner is displayed that scans all the processes and tries to terminate them. A few of the genuine processes are marked as potential threats as well. It also reduces some of the security settings in registry and changes the background to an unchangable banner that says  you are infected. Microsoft has confirmed that MSE will can remove the trojan.

Here are some pictures from the technet blog

Finally here’s a piece of advice from me! Only install an antivirus solution from a trusted provider.