Scareware Scams-Exploiting search engines!
Manufacturers and designers of fake anti-virus software are exploiting search engines to dupe people into buying their fake and useless software.
A careful selection of words and mis-spellings most commonly used, divert unsuspecting internet users to sites that are infected with fake warnings. As soon as users are directed to such sites, pop-ups appear informing the user that their computer has been infected with a virus. This scareware scam is proving to be the most profitable of ’scams’, with scammers and criminals earning upto $10,000 in a single day.
The main reason for this scam business to flourish is due to the alteration of a new technique known as ’search engine optimization’. The technique is put to work by two sets of hi-tech criminals-one group works towards compromising webpages and injects them with the most popular search terms while the other group aims at selling their fake anti-virus software. Using such popular terms and words would imply that the pages appear higher in the search results whenever a keyword search is made thus enhancing the probability of scareware criminals to have a greater success rate.
As soon as a user clicks on an infected page, it is immediately redirected to a site selling fake security software. Customers are then coaxed to buy this fake software (costing upto $50) by numerous pop-ups appearing on the window.
A meteoric rise of 225% has been recorded in this scareware scam business.
Search Engine sites are working towards developing counter measures to stop such scareware scams. It is also advisable that the normal internet user does not panic if at all such an activity is experienced and to contact the authorized dealer selling anti-virus software instead of buying any software online.
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