Beware of Phony Virus Popup Alerts

Scamware, Scareware, and Trojan Generic 13 BAZK

Let's say that you are surfing the internet with a great antivirus (AV) program running on your computer. Suddenly you get a popup window that warns you an aggressive Trojan virus is trying to attack your system and steal your passwords. You click on the message (Example: Figure 1) and  you are sent to a web site that shows your computer is totally infected. The only solution, it seems, is to buy a lifetime membership to an antivirus product such as the Antivirus System PRO (Figure 2) and rely on this unknown entity to rid your computer of the evil Trojans that are waiting to wreak havoc on your computer.

Your first panicked instinct is to click on the warning and order the product, but common sense tells you that your resident antivirus program has been effective in the past; why are you suddenly being attacked by a hideous Trojan virus? So you kill the popup messages (such as Figure 3) and attempt to go on your merry way. Try as you might, the messages keep popping up, and you become worried that you are really under attack. The truth is that you ARE being attacked, but not by a hacker trying to assume your identity or kill your computer. Instead, unbeknownst to you, an antivirus scareware program is trying to sell you a product, even though your system is safe and your current AV program is doing its job.


Read the rest of this article