Scareware Paves the Way for More Insidious Infections

You're using a well known antivirus but find your system infected with scareware. Your well known antivirus doesn't detect it or cannot remove it completely. So you visit some random website that recommends a particular tool for that particular scareware. That tool does a great job of detecting and removing the scareware. You come away from the experience believing:

1. The well known antivirus sucks; and
2. The random tool must be superior; so
3. You dump the well known antivirus in favor of the random tool.

What you don't realize is that the ONLY thing the random removal tool will do is remove a few known scareware. The silent and far more insidious backdoors and password stealers won't be stopped because the removal tool doesn't have that capability. Or it claims to remove backdoors and password stealers when in fact it only handles a few small families.

The takeaway you should have had is that if you were infected with scareware, your own security practices are weak. Antivirus software is not a panacea; it cannot completely overcome poor user habits. If you were infected with scareware, you most likely either (a) clicked through a fraudulent ad and accepted it; or (b) failed to patch your system; or (c) you had weak browser controls.

And thanks to misconceptions, you now still have all of these deficiencies plus you've given up the more complete protection in favor of a random tool. In short, you've paved the way for far more dangerous threats to gain a foothold on your computer. The scareware just became a brilliant red herring that successfully tricked you into lowering your defenses.

Remember that scareware targets the most well known antivirus products. If you encounter scareware that your antivirus cannot detect or remove completely, by all means use one of the (reputable) random tools. But don't give up your traditional antivirus in favor of the random tool - if you do, you will leave yourself wide open to attack. Instead, learn from your scareware experience and adopt better computer habits. Your security depends upon it.