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Future, IDG and Dennis are amongst the UK publishers having websites faked by the publishers of fake antivirus program, Antivirus2010.
The consumer technology magazine giants have both seen three of their biggest publications faked; Future’s Techradar, IDG’s PC Advisor and Dennis’ PC Pro.
PC Pro’s editor Tim Danton conceded to PC Retail that it was difficult to prevent the practice: "We’ve seen this problem before, and it’s almost impossible to guard against.
"Whenever we do hear that our name or awards are being abused in this way, we contact our lawyers and they send a cease-and-desist notice, which usually does the trick."
"But the fact is it will keep on happening, as it’s so easy to take assets – logos, photos – and use them on a website hosted anywhere in the world," added Danton.
The problem, which was spotted by Bleeping Computer, found that after users installed the free trial version of the software, the program edited the Windows Host File to include redirects to the fake review sites.
Other websites affected include ZDnet, Cnet, Download.com and popular customer reviews site Reevoo.
Image courtesy of Bleeping Computer.
