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Scareware Scams |
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A popular way for scammers to persuade you to download files from the Internet is to tell you your computer is already infected with a virus and you need to download antivirus software herein to prevent further damage. Harmful files aren’t just limited to email attachments. Anything you download from the world wide web can potentially be dangerous. The ironic thing in this instance is the “antivirus” software you’re being prompted to download will only make your computer worse if anything. Remember this: websites don’t have access to the files stored on your computer, so if an Internet window pops up informing you its “scanning” your computer and then reports that your “infected” then it’s a complete hoax, and is just trying to get you do download malware onto your computer. The best antivirus software out there you have to pay for, like Norton Antivirus from Symantec. There are free ones out there, like AVG, Spybot S&D and Ad-aware which are pretty good also, but be aware that for every free genuine program out there, there are another 10 that are fake and potentially dangerous. An example of this is winantiviruspro, which is an example of a browser hijacker which will install itself on your computer pretending to be antivirus software. Nothing is black and white, so the best thing to do in instances like this is to ask an expert, who can give you advice on how to proceed. Also Wikipedia have a good list of programs that pose as antivirus software when they are actually malicious. Click here for the list. These programs are often referred to as "scareware". |
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