Dales Computer Services

Interesting artticle today on the BBC.

Online criminals are making millions of pounds by convincing computer users to download fake anti-virus software, internet security experts claim.

Symantec says more than 40 million people have fallen victim to the "scareware" scam in the past 12 months.

The golden rule of surfing the internet is never to respond to messages in webpages or windows that pop up when you open a website claiming your computer is at risk. The only exception is when your own antivirus or firewall installed on your computer warns you that the website is unsafe.

No reputable companies use these sorts of scare tactics and anything that pops up and says "your computer is at risk so download xxxx now" is 100% certain to be a scam.

Three main problems can arise from these scams:

1. You end up spending money on software that is worthless (or worse)
2. You disclose your credit card details to criminals
3. You stand a good chance of being spied upon or your computer being used without your knowledge or permission for illegal purposes.

Here are a couple of good rules of thumb:

• Never download anything or run a program until you know exactly what it is and who is providing it
• Before downloading anything use a good search engine (such as Google) to look for reviews of the software by name and also reviews of the company's reputation

See Millions tricked by 'scareware' for the full story