Softwaream.com

Do not visit Softwaream.com for any reason, if you can avoid Softwaream.com. If you are already having problems because your browser keeps taking you to Softwaream.com, then your computer is infected with malware. Softwaream.com is a malicious website, and as such Softwaream.com should be treated with extreme caution.

In discussions of malware infections, Softwaream.com may be described as either a hijacker or a website, and that can get confusing. The truth is, it is both – Softwaream.com is a malicious site, and the hijacker that causes your web browser to redirect there is also referred to as Softwaream.com. Either way, Softwaream.com exists in order to promote the fake anti-virus software Antivirus Monitor, which is part of an Internet scam.

The Website Softwaream.com

As a website, Softwaream.com is a typical fake site for a rogue anti-virus software scam. There is very little content on Softwaream.com, and the few graphics Softwaream.com has are extremely bland and generic. Repeated all over the sub-pages of Softwaream.com are the same three fake customer testimonials, and a handful of very basic malware terminology definitions. There is contact information given for the Antivirus Monitor, Inc. "company," with an address in London – but the accompanying phone number is not a real number, and it doesn't even have the right prefix for the UK. There is a contact form that you can fill in, accompanied by an extremely generic FAQ, and obviously, no one will get back to you if you enter your information in that form. The site includes some other strange things, like a prominent mention of LAN security, without any other text or content that refers to Softwaream.com or offers details. There is even a ridiculous claim that Antivirus Monitor is used by successful businesses in over 150 countries worldwide. If the site design seems a bit ridiculous, that's to be expected; all of the site's content is there to try to convince you that you should enter your credit card information and pay for Antivirus Monitor, by looking realistic.

The Hijacker Softwaream.com

The hijacker Softwaream.com is easy to identify, because if your computer is infected with Softwaream.com, you will find that you wind up at Softwaream.com whenever you try to look at any website. The hijacker Softwaream.com makes changes to your computer's HOSTS file in order to cause this redirection to happen, so it doesn't matter which browser you use – it will still redirect you to Softwaream.com. Furthermore, once you have been redirected to Softwaream.com, the hijacker may cause pop-up messages to appear which will prompt you to run a "free scan" of your system on the site. If you let it run this fake scan, Softwaream.com will tell you that your computer is infected with malware, and Softwaream.com will recommend a download of Antivirus Monitor in order to fix the problem. Obviously, you can ignore this, because Antivirus Monitor is malware and Softwaream.com does not actually have the ability to scan for threats.

If you discover that you are being redirected to Softwaream.com, and your system is infected with the hijacker Softwaream.com, then your PC was most likely infected via Trojan. In other words, the malware was hidden in something that you downloaded online, probably something that seemed ordinary or harmless, and the malware downloaded without your knowledge. Usually, this kind of malware will show up the next time you re-boot your PC after the download.

The bigger picture of Softwaream.com

Softwaream.com is not unique, and neither is Antivirus Monitor. Antivirus Monitor is closely related to rogue anti-virus applications Antimalware Go, Antivirus .NET, and AntiVira Av, and all of these fake anti-virus applications feed into the same scam. These fake security programs tend to have multiple payment sites which each claim to be the one and only site "sellin" the software, and so it is likely that other malicious sites supporting Antivirus Monitor will be found. Softwaream.com has only been around since March 4, 2011, and contrary to Softwaream.com's claims of being based in the UK, Softwaream.com is hosted in Lithuania, with an IP address (as of this writing) of 77.79.10.35.