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What is Scareware?

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This cyber attack method involves victims being bombarded with fictitious threats on their connected devices. The approach will focus on users being deceived to think their PC is infected with malware, prompting them to install software to fix it.  Scareware can also be known as deception software or fraudware.

An example is that a legitimate looking banner appears on the web browser displaying text such as ‘your computer is infected with spyware’ and offering the user the chance to click to resolve, when it actually then directs them to a malicious site where the computer becomes infected.

This attack approach is closely related to Baiting.

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