Google reports that, between January 2009 and January 2010, it found 11,000 malicious or hacked Web pages that attempted to trick users into downloading fake anti-virus.

"The search giant discovered that as 2009 wore on, scareware peddlers dramatically increased both the number of unique strains of malware designed to install fake anti-virus as well as the frequency with which they deployed hacked or malicious sites set up to force the software on visitors," writes Krebs on Security's Brian Krebs.

"Google found that miscreants spreading fake anti-virus have over the last six months taken aggressive steps to evade the two most prevalent countermeasures against scareware: The daily updates shipped by the legitimate anti-virus makers designed to detect scareware installers; and programs like Google’s which scan millions of Web pages for malicious software and flag search results that lead to malware," Krebs writes.

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