Scareware

The term scareware refers to applications which often masquerade as legit antivirus programs and try to trick users into paying a license fee. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The software giant says it is seeing decreases in scareware, those obnoxious online promotions that try to frighten you into paying for worthless antivirus protection, along with a decline in those faked Flash player updates that actually download viral coding that allows the bad guys to take full control of your PC. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The software giant says it is seeing decreases in scareware, those obnoxious online promotions that ... ❋ Unknown (2009)

Rogue security software is often called scareware because these fake antivirus and registry cleaners can convince the victim to purchase based on flagging screens warning them about threats that don't exist outside the scareware itself. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Rogue antivirus programs -- also known as "scareware" -- had a banner year in 2008. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Microsoft's program wipes out what is known as "scareware" -- pop-up ads that scare users into purchasing fake anti-virus software, USA Today reported Monday. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Another notable threat last year was "scareware" - spam e-mails claiming your computer is in danger that offer a low-cost downloadable protective product, but one which simply scams you by tricking you into divulging confidential passwords. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The report also highlighted the rise in the use of so-called scareware, fake security programs which falsely tell people they need to install software which does nothing other than attempt to steal personal details from a users' PC. ❋ Unknown (2011)

Damian Menscher, a Google security engineer, said the malware appeared to find its way onto computers via fake anti-virus software, also known as scareware. ❋ Unknown (2011)

Also known as scareware, this stuff takes advantage of customers 'desire to keep their computers protected. ❋ Bill Brenner (2010)

Security officials estimate that, worldwide, one million people each day are victimized by scareware, which is one of the fastest-growing categories of malware, according to Microsoft's latest Security Intelligence Report. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Facebook links and so-called scareware -- malware that masquerades as virus-scanning software. ❋ Preston Gralla (2010)

[Scareware] [peddlers] are misleading people with false evidence that their machine is infected with [viruses] and are encouraging them to download and buy software that basically does nothing. ❋ Kgrr (2009)

Criminals are using scareware to try and [infiltrate] [the victims] computers now that they have security software [installed] ❋ Grizmeister (2010)

"You heard of that guy [scareware] who defines [tcp] handshakes as [hotdogs] Yea pretty good example" ❋ Scareware (2021)