Can a virus put porn on your computer? YES. In fact it is a billion dollar business. Since the advent of the internet, malicious software has been designed for a profit. Many of the methods used by viruses result in the hijacking of your computer. in many examples the virus will cause porn and pornographic terms such as jailbait, sexy teen girls, etc. to appear on your computer in an attempt to scare the user into buying the “anti†virus that they also happen to sell.
It has been estimated that at least 50% of the computers with traces of pornography on them were never used to visit porn sites, rather they were infected by a virus that made porn appear on the computer.
These black-market exploitation and hijacking viruses attempt to make the owner of the computer fearful that someone will think they had visited porn sites, bestiality sites, child porn sites when all the time it was viruses that created the pornography.
Even if you use the best of antivirus, you can still become infected by porn spreading viruses. Even visiting sites usually reserved for religion, education, government and children can be infected and therefore infect your computer. furthermore your computer can be infected for seconds, hours or even many months before actually showing any signs which makes it very difficult to determine where the porn or the virus came from.
Here is the usual method the virus takes.
1. Your computer gets infected, either from an infected website, thumb drive, memory card, email, etc.
2. Your computer displays pornography and claims the someone has been visiting porn and sometimes illegal porn sites.
3. The virus begins to display advertisements for a special anti-virus which promises to remove the porn and the virus, for a fee.
During this time the infected computer begins to infect attached devices, attempts to send virus to contacts stored in computer, etc. These are very tricky to get rid of and many times people who do not understand the way the virus works will be too embarrassed to get it fixed properly or ask for help, which perpetuates the problem.
Here is how to follow the money: It cost virtually nothing to create a virus and 1 million computers, then if 1% of those 1m people purchase any antivirus software that is 100 thousand people, if 1% of that 1% of people purchase the advertised antivirus for $40, that is 10 thousand people giving $40 to the creator of the virus! The creator just earned $400,000 (4 hundred thousand dollars) with almost no investment. also take into consideration it is more like 20% who will purchase the software, sometimes the price of the software can be up to $200 instead of $40 and the creator has probably created dozens if no hundreds of viruses that have infected multi millions of computers. staggering isn’t it? There are people right now sitting on yachts enjoying the good life because of the fear of computer users to ask for help out of embarrassment. It is blackmail in it’s most sinister form. They might just as well have Photoshop edited the victims face into a compromising photograph and then demanded payment for it.
I shudder to think how many people have lost their jobs, how many children punished, how many relationships destroyed by these viruses and the people who do not understand how they work.
I have been in the field for well over 20 years and I am still amazed just how many “professionals†who do not even realize how this actually works. It is this mass confusion and embarrassment that enables the creator of the virus to profit.
We need to spread this info around, if enough people know and understand, if enough people refuse to pay these blackmailers, the tide will go down. Remember, just because someone is accused of being a witch, doesn’t mean they are a witch. Please help to educate your friends, family and coworkers by passing this on.
You can read my articles in the Washington Forensics WI periodicals and you can listen to my weekly webinar; “Specialized Web Security 3.0â€
Anthony Scotta, Administrative Director
Office: (202) 483-3297, Fax: (202) 863-0670
Washington Forensics Web investigations, inc.
1710 Connecticut Avenue Northwest
Washington D.C., DC 20009
Office: (202) 483-3297, Fax: (202) 863-0670
Washington Forensics Web investigations, inc.
1710 Connecticut Avenue Northwest
Washington D.C., DC 20009
Matthew Healey / The Boston Herald via APInternet Virus Frames Users For Child Porn
Michael and Robin Fiola sit with the forensics report that exonerated Michael, who had been accused of downloading child porn on his Massachusetts state-issued laptop computer.
Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.
Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses – the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it’s your reputation that’s stolen.
Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they’ll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.
Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer – and might not realize it until police knock at your door.
An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.
Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual pedophiles often blame viruses – a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law enforcement.
“It’s an example of the old `dog ate my homework’ excuse,” says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework.”
The AP’s investigation included interviewing people who had been found with child porn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to prosecutors, police and computer examiners.
One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers’ compensation.
In 2007, Fiola’s bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.
A Virus can infect your computer with child porn and send you to prison!
Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends.
Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.
An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute – an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.
Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped – 11 months after it was filed.
The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they’ve talked to dozens of lawyers but can’t get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount they can recover.
“It ruined my life, my wife’s life and my family’s life,” he says.
The Massachusetts attorney general’s office, which charged Fiola, declined interview requests.
At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.
Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else’s computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.
“They’re kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield,” says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services.
But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC’s owner.
In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after viruses were shown to have been responsible for the child porn on their PCs.
Can a Computer Virus put Child Pornography on your computer? YES!
In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor’s PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.
In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man’s Web browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his daughter.
Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel manager whose co-workers found child porn on the PC they shared with him.
Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive for a certain period.
In all these cases, the central evidence wasn’t in dispute: Pornography was on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.
Tami Loehrs, who inspected Fiola’s computer, recalls a case in Arizona in which a computer was so “extensively infected” that it would be “virtually impossible” to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who used the PC had uploaded child pornography to a Yahoo group.
Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only because of his age and lack of a criminal record.
Many prosecutors say blaming a computer virus for child porn is a new version of an old ploy.
“We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It,” says James Anderson, a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.
However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a pedophile to get away with his crime by using a bogus virus defense.
“I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the lottery before trying to defend myself with that,” says forensics specialist Jeff Fischbach.
Even careful child porn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails, DVDs or other clues. Virus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.
But while the virus defense does not appear to be letting real pedophiles out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.
Can a virus infect your computer with porn? YES!
Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for child porn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his computer.
Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult porn – but not child porn. So what could explain that material?
Loehrs testified that Solon’s antivirus software wasn’t working properly and appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She found no evidence the five child porn videos on Solon’s computer had been viewed or downloaded fully. The porn was in a folder the file-sharing program labeled as “incomplete” because the downloads were canceled or generated an error.
This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she argues he is innocent.
“I don’t think it was him, I really don’t,” Loehrs says. “There was too much evidence that it wasn’t him.”
The prosecution’s forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon’s antivirus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antivirus programs on the computer and didn’t find an infection – although security experts say antivirus scans frequently miss things.
“He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other cases I do,” Huff says.
The jury took two hours to convict Solon.
“Everybody feels they’re innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because that’s what everybody says,” says Solon, whose case is being appealed. “All I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out.”
But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto a PC.
“Computers are not to be trusted,” says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as “painfully simple” to get a computer to download something the owner doesn’t want – whether it’s a program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.
It’s possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be discovered.
“Just because it’s there doesn’t mean the person intended for it to be there – whatever it is, child porn included.”
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Japanese porn virus blackmails users:
Malicious software has been getting smarter and smarter at trying to trick people into accepting their payload or parting with their cash and the latest is no exception.
A Japanese Trojan is currently installing itself onto millions of people’s computers.
The virus dubbed Kenzero will edit your internet history by adding terms such as young jailbait girls and sexy teen cheerleaders and others and then publish it onto a public website and then demand that you pay up a ransom in order to have it removed. Basically the virus is blackmailing you!
When you think you are installing a game or a program, an installation screen appears that is really part of the virus in disguise and it asks you to enter personal information which is then grabbed by the virus.
Kenzero then nabs your browsing history, edits it to make it appear worse, posts it online in your name, before sending you a request for 1500 yen (about $20usd) to take your embarrassing and tampered history down.
Ok so what’s the website where the user’s history is published, that’s got to give a clue as to the source of the virus?
Apparently it’s owned by a shell company called Romancing Inc which is registered to a fake person by the name of Shoen Overns, a name that is already known to security firms in connection with other viruses.
“We’ve seen the name before in association with the Zeus and Koobface trojans. It is an established criminal gang that is continuously involved in this sort of activity†Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro told the BBC. Trend Micro is currently monitoring the Kenzero virus.
The advice as always is the same. Make sure that all your antivirus and security software is up to date, that you have your firewall turned on, and keep your system files updated too.
If you do happen to receive a demand for payment, don’t be fooled. Ignore it, and run a full virus scan to check for malicious software on your computer.
Apparently over 5,500 people have already been affected by the Kenzero virus and it is expected to rise quickly and significantly
A virus that holds you to ransom – whatever will they come up with next?
“Warning! Detected porn files†is a popup warning message on computer that was compromised with a rogue anti-spyware application. These are misleading alerts that may lead to downloading of another malware. The full message reads:
Warning!!! Detected porn files
Hard drive scanner results: Warning! Your computer is full of porn files
Hard drive scanner results: Warning! Your computer is full of porn files
Help protect your computer from fake “Warning! Detected porn files” pop-up alert:
– Make firewall active.
– Always update operating system, internet browser and anti-virus programs.
– Install a separate anti-malware program aside from present anti-virus application if it is not included.
– Be cautious when clicking links. It can point your browser to download threats or visit malicious web site.
– Make firewall active.
– Always update operating system, internet browser and anti-virus programs.
– Install a separate anti-malware program aside from present anti-virus application if it is not included.
– Be cautious when clicking links. It can point your browser to download threats or visit malicious web site.
many more articles about people being framed by computer viruses putting porn on your computer. http://www.framedforchildporn.com/news.php
images not loading? read this online: https://newsfornatives.com/blog/2011/07/13/can-viruses-put-porn-on-your-pc-yes
We need to spread this info around, if enough people know and understand, if enough people refuse to pay these blackmailers, the tide will go down. Remember, just because someone is accused of being a witch, doesn’t mean they are a witch. Please help to educate your friends, family and coworkers by passing this on.
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