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Schneier On Scareware Vendor Lawsuits

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-what-about-the-car-warranty-robot-who-calls-every-day dept.

Bruce Schneier's blog says "This is good: Microsoft Corp. and the state of Washington this week filed lawsuits against a slew of 'scareware' purveyors, scam artists who use fake security alerts to frighten consumers into paying for worthless computer security software. "

3 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. colors by apodyopsis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm confused, I don't use windows, but surely somebody could just change the desktop colors and then when a warning alert turned up in the old colors they would know it was a scam?

    Is that too obvious?

  2. Re:Courts determining what's required for security by db32 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sounds like it could be used for Microsoft to take a swing at all of the legitimate anti-virus/scumware/etc apps for advertising how critical their software is because Windows has so many problems.

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  3. Re:FAKE security warnings, for Windows? by sjwest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you run a linux os with a modern web browser, and you visit a site with the scareware it is mildly amusing to see that your registry is screwed up and the site looks like internet explorer in colour scheme but you can download an exe to fix.

    Its happened twice to me, and i find them amusing.

    Im quite sure this is how windows zombies get signed up, but my penguin knows better.