Washington AG: Scareware Beware

The Washington state attorney general and Microsoft have teamed up to put a stop to rogue scanners. Termed scareware, the rogue scanners employ deceptive advertising to trick victims into purchasing bogus products, typically displaying erroneous warnings claiming the system is infected and instructing the user to purchase a full blown version of the 'scanner' in order to remove the fictitious infections. Not only do victims risk wasting their money on such scams, often times their credit card details are used fraudulently for other purchases. For a list of deceptive products, see 69 Scanners to Avoid. Also see: Wash. AG Press Release