Summary: The Nocebo
Effect on the Web: An Analysis of Fake Anti-Virus Distribution
Moheeb Abu Rajab
moheeb@google.com
Lucas Ballard
lucasballard@google.com
Panayiotis Mavrommatis
panayiotis@google.com
Niels Provos
niels@google.com
Xin Zhao
xinzhao@google.com
Google Inc.
Abstract
We present a study of Fake Anti-Virus attacks on the
web. Fake AV software masquerades as a legitimate se-
curity product with the goal of deceiving victims into
paying registration fees to seemingly remove malware
from their computers. Our analysis of 240 million web
pages collected by Google's malware detection infras-

Source: Amir, Yair - Department of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University
Pregibon, Daryl - Google Labs

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences; Mathematics