OK, I found a new information technology term on the news wires this morning: Scareware! I always love our human need to find a tag for new ideas and concepts.
The Information Technology (IT) Vocabulary Builder series aims to deliver a very concise summary of a currently relevant topic to Information Professionals. It is done mostly by collecting a small number of highly relevant web links to save you the time of combing through search results yourself.
The place where I saw the reference is here:
The UK Register – 3 men charged in $100m scareware scam:
“Federal prosecutors have accused three men of running an operation that used fraudulent ads to dupe internet users around the world into buying more than $100m worth of bogus anti-virus software…
The scheme often tricked users into purchasing multiple sham products, which were sold under names including Malware Alarm, Antivirus 2008 and VirusRemover 2008.”
You can learn more about our new term at Wikipedia. Here is how they define it:
Scareware comprises several classes of scam software with malicious payloads, or of limited or no benefit, that are sold to consumers via certain unethical marketing practices. The selling approach uses social engineering to cause shock, anxiety, or the perception of a threat, generally directed at an unsuspecting user. Some forms of spyware and adware also use scareware tactics.
A tactic frequently used by criminals involves convincing users that a virus has infected their computer, then suggesting that they download (and pay for) fake antivirus software to remove it.
A couple of other web resources are available:
I guess IT Professionals can learn something new every day!
So how do you think that this relates to Information Technology? How do you think that it could be important to Information Technology Professionals?
Do you know of any other new IT terms that should be discussed?
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 28, 2010 by Scott Coughlin.
Image credit: DHS
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IT Vocabulary Builder: Scareware
The Information Technology (IT) Vocabulary Builder series aims to deliver a very concise summary of a currently relevant topic to Information Professionals. It is done mostly by collecting a small number of highly relevant web links to save you the time of combing through search results yourself.
The place where I saw the reference is here:
The UK Register – 3 men charged in $100m scareware scam:
You can learn more about our new term at Wikipedia. Here is how they define it:
A couple of other web resources are available:
I guess IT Professionals can learn something new every day!
So how do you think that this relates to Information Technology? How do you think that it could be important to Information Technology Professionals?
Do you know of any other new IT terms that should be discussed?
That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for May 28, 2010 by Scott Coughlin.
Image credit: DHS
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
This entry was posted by Scott Coughlin on May 28, 2010 at 5:36 am, and is filed under Business of IT, Human Resources, Information Age, Information Assurance, Information Technology, IT Vocabulary Builder, News Commentary, Security. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.