Privacy-Watcher

Privacy-Watcher

Privacy-Watcher is bogus/rogue privacy protection software lately seen on the internet.

Site Name: Privacy-Watcher.com
IP Address: 77.91.229.99
Registrar: ESTDOMAINS, INC.
And as usual the registrant is hidden behind privacyprotect.org and another site Winsafer.com also shares the same IP address.

Privacy-Watcher uses the same standard homepage which is also used by many other scam/rogue/crapware applications.

The application also uses a Fake/scare privacy scan page that tries to lure users into downloading/purchasing this application.

Screenshot of different fake/scare scan page used by the scammers

Screenshot of Privacy-Watcher application

The application just does a fake scan on the system and ask user to purchase the full version to remove the privacy threats detected on the system. The Site is very active from starting of April and here is the traffic analysis.

The site also uses Billingserviceonline.com for payment processing which is used by many rogue applications.

The installer from the site was scanned and here are the scan results

VirusTotal Scan Result: 4/32 (12.5%)

AntiVir 7.8.0.8 2008.04.20 SPR/Fake.WinXDe.A.1
DrWeb 4.44.0.09170 2008.04.20 BackDoor.Pcik.origin
F-Secure 6.70.13260.0 2008.04.20 Suspicious:W32/Malware!Gemini
Prevx1 V2 2008.04.20 Heuristic: Suspicious File With Mass Email Capabilities

Detection of the installer is really poor, stay away from this site.

Bharath M N