[German]Fraudsters offer a fake version of Microsoft Windows Movie Maker for download. The link has made it to the first (or second) place, depending on the search term, in the search results thanks to optimizations of the crooks.
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Windows Movie Maker is a video editor offered for free from Microsoft. But Windows Live Essentials 2012, which included Movie Maker, has been withdrawn for download since a while. Microsoft only offers Movie Maker as a Windows 10 App in Microsoft Store. Fraudsters take advantage of this and offers a fake version of Movie Maker for download on a website. The criminals have succeeded in creating the website windows-movie-maker[.dot]org to the top of search engine search results.
If you search for' Movie Maker' in Google or other search engines, the fake page will be listed in the first place in the hits. When searching for' Windows Movie Maker', the scammers page appears as a second hit (see screenshot above). The link leads to the following page where the Movie Maker is offered for free download.
The counterfeit software then tries to get money from the users (although Movie Maker was always free). If users install the software offered on the above-mentioned website, they will receive a working Windows Movie Maker. In contrast to the official and free Windows Movie Maker from Microsoft, however, the downloaded version claims that it is a trial version, which needs to be upgraded to a full version in order to offer all the features. That's supposed to cost $29.95.
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ESET security researchers has published this blog post about this topic. ESET classifies the website as Win32/Hoax.MovieMaker. On November 5, 2017, Win32/Hoax MovieMaker was the third most recognized threat and the biggest threat in Israel worldwide. Since November 6, ESET telemetry has recorded many downloads in the Philippines, Israel, Finland and Denmark.
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