ZoneAlarm Employs Scare Tactics Against Its Users

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 20, 2010 @08:56AM from the your-computer-is-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.

snydeq writes "Check Point Software appears to be ripping a page from the 'scum it claims to fight,' running a scare-tactic warning dialog to frighten users into upgrading to a paid version of the company's ZoneAlarm firewall product. Preying on fears of ZeuS.Zbot, the Check Point warning dialog tells users their PCs 'may be in danger' without having found ZeuS.Zbot, nor having checked to see whether you're running an antivirus product. 'The program doesn't care if you're infected with ZeuS.Zbot, or if you have protection in place. It just wants to sell you an upgrade to the firewall that may or may not detect future ZeuS.Zbot variants' activities — some day.' Check Point's customers have inundated the ZoneAlarm forums with complaints."

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Backfire after management change by flydpnkrtn · 2010-09-20 09:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

As a poster indicates, ZA was bought out by CheckPoint a few months ago. This scare tactic will probably backfire on them...
Why in the hell did someone at CheckPoint say to themselves "Wait a second... Gestapo style marketing that looks like a phishing scam sounds like a great idea!"

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Here's to the crazy ones
Zounds! ZoneAlarm zealous about Zeus.Zbot? by Culture20 · 2010-09-20 09:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Whatever happened to alliteration in article titles?