Dear Privacy Commander, What are You Commanding?

Privacy Commander is of no use to anyone.  In fact, with the growing awareness among average users about rogue security tools, this one could almost be called a no-brainer.  It's not as clever as some of the others, who discovered that pretending to be a Microsoft product makes it easier to slip under more people's radar.  Let's look at it.

Privacy Commander, as I said, is a rogue security program.  These programs are very similar to the XP Antivirus family of viruses.  There is one significant difference, though.  Corrupt security tools don't typically come with a virus.  They are a bundle of spyware that comes with a skeletal antivirus program.

The first piece of spyware that you get with Privacy Commander and the others is a Zlob Trojan Downloader.  This program downloads the rest of the infection onto your computer.  This includes a pop up, which appears as a warning screen and will often scan your temporary files to alarm you.  The other spyware program on it is a Browser Hijacker, which is used to redirect your browser to their website.

These programs all work together to scare the Internet surfer into buying their lousy antivirus program.  Should you get infected and get conned into buying this software, it's not worth keeping.  It's very limited in its effectiveness, and it doesn't update.  The goal of Privacy Commander never involved protection.

Instead, they merely want to rip you off.  If you buy Privacy Commander, you have a whole new problem.  You have just given access to your credit card to an unscrupulous person.  Feel lucky if they only take the asking cost out of your account.  They can take it all.

The big problem with Privacy Commander and its ilk is they provide you with no warning of attack.  They reside in infected websites and in corrupted downloads.  Some of the websites can be distinguished by the address in the address box not matching what is said on the webpage.  Those are virtually guaranteed to be infected, but not all infected sites have that clue.

Most often, the websites are apparently adult-oriented.  Again, that is not a universal feature.  Privacy Commander, along with every other rogue program, has a home page where the 'full version' can be purchased.  This page is also infected.

Many antispyware programs have created a feature where they can block users from browsing to infected websites.  However, this becomes a matter of chasing new home pages for these programs around the Internet.  It's too easy to set up a new page when one gets blocked.

The infected downloads are a particular nuisance.  Often, programs like Privacy Commander will disguise themselves as video codecs, and can often bypass antispyware programs this way.  Once in, the infection is on.

While articles like this one cannot keep you from getting infected, it is hoped that you can be protected from the scams that they're used for.  To keep from getting infected takes an excellent antispyware program.  Make sure you have 100% protection.

About the Author:

Carl runs a site devoted to helping you rid your computer from all sorts of spyware and malware at http://www.spyzooka.com/