You’ve probably heard of those rogue “antivirus” programs that do nothing more than tell you have a virus and require you to register in order to get rid of it.  Most of these are trojans in and of themselves.  Well, the maker of one of these just got nailed by both Visa and MasterCard:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001631.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/obscene_profits_fuel_rogue_ant.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/antivirus2009_holds_victims_do.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/sunlight_disinfects_rogue_anti.html

For the link-phobic, sites like TrafficConverter.biz create a (usually quite fake) antivirus or security program.  This program informs the user (sometimes randomly) that they have something wrong with their computer.  The program can fix it, but only if the user registers… which costs $20-50.  For every $50 registration, TrafficConverter.biz gets $20 and the affiliate that got the user to install it gets $30.  More often than not, these rogue programs also carried trojans such as various downloader virii.  These kinds of malware are not only a scam, but the virii they come with are often VERY difficult to remove.  (Yes, I know the proper procedure after a virus infection is to wipe and reinstall, but I have yet to find a customer willing to let me do that.  They ALL say, “Just take the virus off”  and tell me they don’t want to spend any more than they have to…)

So as of 18 March 2009, Visa and MasterCard officials descended on the German bank that provided this site with card processing services and terminated their ability to process any transactions.  The bank froze the account.

Well… it’s a good start.  I’d prefer castration, evisceration, tenderization by defenestration, followed by drawing and quartering and finally being fed to a colony of fire ants.  But terminating credit card processing is a good start none the less.