Possible scamming/malware website?

So I got careless when I was searching for information about one of Steam files and got to site -http://www.spywareremove.com (with Noscript enabled), but afterwards found out that it had possible malware spreading. However, user comments indicate malicious content being incerted (possibly mainly) in manual downloads from the site and general scam advices on computers…

https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/www.spywareremove.com

One suspicious blacklist on virustotal:

https://www.virustotal.com/en/url/f0abce29940037aeb050b2f184d1a3da7f1d371b405e388f5114c35b7fd1f19f/analysis/1449177803/

Very poor reputation at myWot and Norton safeweb:

https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/spywareremove.com

https://safeweb.norton.com/report/show?url=www.spywareremove.com

Google Safe Browsing, and Quttera show site being clean. SiteAdvisor seems to notice one malicious link:

https://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/www.spywareremove.com

the site advertise for SpyHunter … all removal guides there recomend using SpyHunter that will only remove what it find if you pay

some info here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/550005/spyhunter-vs-malwarebytes-vs-iobit/?p=3491488

There is more software like this in the market, it scans and detects but then to cleanse you have to pay.
Some consider that as a scam, many various sites with malware analyses that advise the use of this scam software.
The removal information as such could be valid, only that particular program should not be performed!

polonus

So what you mean is that the site itself probably isn’t malicious, just assumed so for advertising scam software?

No Pernaman, you did not understand. Luring you into trying the software and then having to pay for it to cleanse anything it finds is the unethical part. So you download it for free, it scans it detects and then it will only function when you pay. The scam is the same software, the scam is the non-existing functionality before you pay.

polonus

Sorry if I sound ambiguous. :-\ I understood that the main thing in this is that you can get screwed with your computer if you go and download a scam program, but the thing I was thinking about is that if the site itself contains anything that can be malicious/otherwise harmful aside of manually downloadable “rogue program”, or can the program itself/something else slip itself into your computer when visiting the site. All I did on the site was visit one artiche about one Steam computer file and did not search anything that would get me to allow download anything.

And a good question, Pernaman, as also this site has it’s vulnerabilities and code that should better be retired or blocked by script blocker.
Detected libraries:
jquery - 1.7.1 : (active1) -http://www.spywareremove.com/wp-content/plugins/colorbox-html5/jquery.min.js
Info: Severity: medium
http://bugs.jquery.com/ticket/11290
http://research.insecurelabs.org/jquery/test/
(active) - the library was also found to be active by running code
1 vulnerable library detected → http://www.domxssscanner.com/scan?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spywareremove.com%2Fwp-content%2Fplugins%2Fcolorbox-html5%2Fjquery.min.js
Do not like where it is landing: https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/edge.quantserve.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=popup
-https://oauth.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/js/core:rpc:shindig.random:shindig.sha1.js?c=2
7 out of 10 red website security risk status: http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=https://oauth.googleusercontent.com

So you see there is always reason for caution.

pol

It is not scamming.
The sites say you can download the software for free, which is true.
It doesn’t mean the software will (fully) work without paying for it.

Often it is mentioned in “the fine print” or in a “corner of the website”.
e.g.

  • You can only use this trial x times
  • If you want to make full use of this application you need to buy a license
  • This trial will only let you remove x things