Fake Windows Movie Maker links

What’s the threat?

Scam websites charging money for Microsoft’s free (but now discontinued) Windows Movie Maker appeared recently at the top of Google search results. At some points during the past few months typing ‘Movie Maker’ brought up the website www.windows-moviemaker.org (see screenshot). The site looks convincing, and lets you download Movie Maker for all versions of Windows since XP. But when you try to save your video it asks you for $29.95 to unlock the “full version” of the program. Microsoft never charged for Movie Maker.

Below this site in the search results was a link for a Movie Maker app you could install from ‘Microsoft Store India’. This is unrelated to Microsoft’s program, and is stuffed with intrusive adverts. Results on Bing, Microsoft’s own search engine, were also producing the scam sites.

Microsoft announced the demise of Movie Maker in January 2017, but Google says 10 million searches for ‘movie maker’ and ‘windows movie maker’ are still made every month. Scammers have been quick to exploit this. The fake programs were discovered by software security company ESET, who warned that thanks to the high search ranking the scammers “managed to reach a global audience”.

How can you stay safe?

Never search for ‘movie maker’ online – you won’t find a genuine version of it. Microsoft removed the download link to the program from its site when the Fall Creators Update was released in October. Instead, use the company’s new tools, such as Story Remix and Movie Moments ( www.snipca.com/26461), and the updated ‘Films & TV’ app, which has video-editing options (see Workshop, page 35).

The worry is that scammers will have seen how easy it is to get fake programs to the top of search results, so always double-check the authenticity of a software link – particular if it’s for a defunct tool. To remain completely safe, only download programs Computeractive recommends.