"A cyber gang known for aggressively spreading fake anti-spyware programs through hijacked and malicious Web sites has become an authorized reseller of domain names," reports The Washington Post. The Post reports "this gang is using its access as a registrar to ease the process of creating new Web sites used to push their invasive software." The registrar is Klikdomains.com, part of Klikvip.com, and is also known as Vivids Media GMBH.

"Patrick Jordan, a researcher at Sunbelt Software who has long tracked the group's activities, said Klik's fake anti-spyware programs come disguised as video "codecs," which some porn and youtube look-alike sites claim users need to install in order to view video content. In reality, the codecs hijack search engine traffic and serve fake alerts about bogus security threats in order to convince the victim to purchase some worthless security software."

The full report in The Washington Post can be found at voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/09/fake_antispyware_purveyor_also.html.