Scareware ‘on the rise’

Those using web hosting packages may want to look out for some dangerous software pretending to be anti-virus programmes, otherwise known as scareware.

Symantec has found 250 separate fake programs being sold for between £20 and £60 as part of a recent rogue security software report. These were sold through nearly 200,000 websites across the world.

Cybercriminals have now managed to bag themselves profits of more than £850,000. As part of the scam, users are fooled into downloading the scareware when they visit unfamiliar websites.

Such is the sophistication of the cybercriminals’ activity that 93 per cent of scareware is intentionally downloaded by internet users who believe they are doing the right thing.

"There are websites out there and they keep cropping up every day, which keep creating hundreds or thousands of domains, each of them pretending to be advice websites," warned training manager for computer forensics courses at 7Safe Jens Kirschner.

Written by Sarah Woolf.