According to Symantec, ‘more than 40 million people have fallen victim to the “scareware” scam in the past 12 months.’ The security firm has identified 250 versions of scareware. The scam has been fetching more than £750,000 each a year for online criminals. These perpetrators convince computer users to download fake anti-virus software. To further promote the marketing scheme, ‘fake reviews help build the credibility of bogus anti-virus software.’

The download is said to be harmful. Criminals also use it to get the victim’s personal information such as credit card details. The modus operandi has been ‘very prevalent and it’s growing very quickly out there on the internet,’ according to Internet security experts.

Con Mallon of Symantec, says, “Obviously, you’re losing your own hard-earned cash up front, but at the back end of that, if you’re transacting with these guys online you’re offering them credit card details, debit card details and other personal information. That’s obviously very valuable because these cyber criminals can try to raid those accounts themselves or they can then pass them on or sell them to others who ultimately will try to use that information to their benefit not yours.”

These findings and conclusions are part of a report filed by Symantec based on their analysis of data collected from July 2008 to June 2009. According to Symantec, 43 million people were victimized by the scams during the said period alone.

The strategy usually employed by scareware sellers is the use of pop-up advertisements that were designed to deliberately look legitimate by ‘using the same typefaces as Microsoft and other well-known software providers.’ These pop-ups appear when a user is switching to another website. A false warning that the computer’s security is suddenly in trouble is meant to ‘scare’ the user. When the user clicks on the message, the page turns to ‘another site where they can download the fake anti-virus software they supposedly need to clean up their computer – for a fee of up to £60.’

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Via BBC