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Such software, often referred to as "scareware," has gotten more attention in the past year as scammers continue to enjoy success tricking users into shelling out big bucks. In a report titled "Report on Rogue Security Software," Symantec officials uncovered that sales affiliates were pulling in staggering amounts of money.

Malware writers seem to be targeting the Task Manager with increasing frequency. McAfee's Avert Labs wrote in its blog yesterday of the discovery of a new Trojan it dubbed QTaskMgr-1, which crawls into the registry and disables the Task Manager, Windows Update and Internet Explorer tool bars. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del will activate the Windows Security menu, but all functions including Change Password and Lock Computer are disabled.

In reviewing several security articles and blogs about malware characteristics and workarounds, I see a recurring piece of advice: Don't click on any popup or dialog window; instead use the Windows Task Manager to end offending processes. It's good advice, since malware writers-particularly those spreading scareware or bogus applications designed to trick computer users into buying useless security software-are gaming the dialog windows. Users are often presented with the typical option, such as "do you wish to proceed? Yes/No." Hitting either button or even the "X" window closing button will initiate a background process as if the user agreed. Using the Task Manager is the safe way of disabling these processes to allow the anti-virus software to scan and remove the offending code. Or so we think. Malware writers seem to be targeting the Task Manager with increasing frequency. McAfee's Avert Labs wrote in its blog yesterday of the discovery of a new Trojan it dubbed QTaskMgr-1, which crawls into the registry and disables the Task Manager, Windows Update and Internet Explorer tool bars. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del will activate the Windows Security menu, but all functions including Change Password and Lock Computer are disabled.