Antivirus Protection 2012 is rogue (low quality) anti-virus program which claims that your computer has been infected by Trojan horses, keyloggers, rootkits and other sophisticated malware without any specific evidence. The moment Antivirus Protection is installed on your computer, it will begin to scan your system for malicious software. Malware scan takes just few seconds, whereas a legit antivirus program may take a few hours to complete the scan. Once the scan is finished, the rogue anti-virus program will report finding dozens of infections on your computer to scare you into compliance. Furthermore, it will display fake security alerts. These alerts (see images below) often look very realistic. Masked as anti-virus program, Antivirus Protection 2012 will claim that you need to pay money to register the software in order to remove found threats. It's very important to research any software before purchasing it. Especially, if it suddenly pops up on your computer and tells you that you are infected.
It's not a new family of malicious software. Early versions first surfaced three years ago under various names such as Security Monitor 2012, AntiVirus System 2011, etc. The graphical user interface hasn't changed much since then. High conversation rates is perhaps the most likely reason why they've used the same GUI over the years. We have to admit that Antivirus Protection 2012 and fake security alerts often mimic and look very much like the actual Windows Security Center and Windows system warnings. Thus they may look quite legitimate to unsuspecting users.
