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April 5, 2016<\/p>\n
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Contact: Cindy Hoang, cindyh@nclnet.org<\/a>, (202) 207-2832<\/p>\n Washington, DC\u2014The nation\u2019s pioneering consumer advocacy organization is today issuing a warning<\/a> for consumers about the increasing prevalence of unwanted software\u2014annoying and sometimes dangerous malware being downloaded unknowingly by computer users. According to the National Consumers League (NCL), which operates the newly relaunched Fraud.org<\/a>, unwanted software is installed on tens of millions of computers in America and is associated with billions of dollars in fraud every year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you download free software, it might come with an unexpected addition: hidden programs that can cause problems on your computer ranging from the merely annoying to truly dangerous,\u201d said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications, and fraud. \u201cUnwanted software has been around for some time, but in recent years, it has become an even bigger concern for Internet users and is a significant enough threat to consumers that we\u2019ve issued today\u2019s Fraud Alert to warn them and help prevent these downloads.\u201d<\/p>\n A\u00a0May 2015 study\u00a0by Google, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara found that tens of millions of visitors to Google\u2019s services had unwanted adware installed on their computer. Within that group, half had at least two, and nearly one-third of users had at least four such programs infecting their machines. And that\u2019s just for one type of unwanted software infection. Unwanted software was the source of nearly 20 percent of complaints from Chrome users alone in 2014.<\/p>\n A\u00a0similar study\u00a0by security firm Namogoo found that 15-30 percent of e-commerce website visitors were infected with malware that causes them to view injected ads, malicious links, and fraudulent spyware on otherwise legitimate sites.<\/p>\n Unwanted software imposes a range of costs on consumers affected by it. They can slow computers to a crawl, resulting in wasted time for users. It can prompt consumers to spend money on expensive computer support services to get the infections removed from their computers. Worst of all, unwanted software can raise the risk of identity fraud, which could potentially result in lost job opportunities, difficulty in obtaining credit, delays in obtaining tax refunds, and thousands of dollars in direct costs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile unwanted software can appear to be simply an annoyance that detracts from the experience of using a browser, these dangerous downloads in fact pose a significant security risk to consumers\u2019 personal information,\u201d said Breyault.\u00a0\u201cSome software will disable security protections and settings to take control of a consumer\u2019s computer, leaving that computer vulnerable to hackers and data thieves.\u201d<\/p>\n