{"id":7293,"date":"2015-08-08T04:54:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T20:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.bankvaultonline.com\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2015-08-08T04:54:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-07T20:54:44","slug":"definition-scareware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/","title":{"rendered":"Definition of the Day: Scareware"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Scareware <\/strong>is malware that frightens users into downloading software that appears to be legitimate but is actually malware.  It usually takes the form of a pop-up that looks like it comes from a legitimate anti-virus company. The pop-up tells the user that it has identified a serious, dangerous virus in your machine and then prompts the user to install its anti-virus software to remove the virus.  In some of these scams the user has to pay for the software.  In others, the &#8216;fix&#8217; is free.   In some of these scams the user need only click on a button on the pop-up to \u2018clean\u2019 the machine. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, the bad virus doesn\u2019t exist and the solution for it is malware that steals the person\u2019s data.  <\/p>\n<p>The most widespread use of scareware occurred in China between 2006 and 2012. There, an unscrupulous company named 360\/Qihoo distributed free anti-virus software to 100s of millions of Chinese PC users.  The software contained legitimate anti-virus detection and removal capabilities but it also contained a scareware component that incorrectly told its users that one or more of their installed web browsers was loaded with security vulnerabilities and needed to be uninstalled.  The AV software then uninstalled the so-called \u2018dangerous\u2019 web browser and installed 360\/Qihoo\u2019s \u2018safe\u2019 web browser.  Of course, the \u2018dangerous\u2019 web browser wasn\u2019t dangerous.  It was merely the competition. This sleazy tactic netted 360\/Qihoo millions of new browser users. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scareware is malware that frightens users into downloading software that appears to be legitimate but is actually malware. It usually takes the form of a pop-up that looks like it comes from a legitimate anti-virus company. The pop-up tells the user that it has identified a serious, dangerous virus in your machine and then prompts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346],"tags":[369,94,350,23,263,248,48,344],"class_list":["post-7293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-definition-of-the-day","tag-360qihoo","tag-china-cyberheists","tag-chinese-cyber-espionage","tag-cyber-security","tag-definition-of-the-day","tag-identity-theft","tag-malware","tag-scareware"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Definition of the Day: Scareware - BankVault<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Definition of the Day: Scareware - BankVault\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scareware is malware that frightens users into downloading software that appears to be legitimate but is actually malware. It usually takes the form of a pop-up that looks like it comes from a legitimate anti-virus company. The pop-up tells the user that it has identified a serious, dangerous virus in your machine and then prompts [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BankVault\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BankVaultOnline\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-07T20:54:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"A. Yost\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bankvaultonline\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bankvaultonline\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"A. Yost\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Definition of the Day: Scareware - BankVault","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Definition of the Day: Scareware - BankVault","og_description":"Scareware is malware that frightens users into downloading software that appears to be legitimate but is actually malware. It usually takes the form of a pop-up that looks like it comes from a legitimate anti-virus company. The pop-up tells the user that it has identified a serious, dangerous virus in your machine and then prompts [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/","og_site_name":"BankVault","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BankVaultOnline\/","article_published_time":"2015-08-07T20:54:44+00:00","author":"A. Yost","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@bankvaultonline","twitter_site":"@bankvaultonline","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"A. Yost","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.bankvault.com\/definition-scareware\/"},"author":{"name":"A. 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