Alert from McAfee: Beware of scareware

Welcome to my inaugural blog about online threats! The purpose of this blog is to alert families to some of the dirty tricks that the bad guys use to scam families on the Internet. 
The first scam I’m going to tell you about is not a new one, but it remains popular. It’s called scareware, or fake antivirus software scams, and McAfee Labs is reporting that it has more than doubled since the beginning of 2009, affecting around 69,000 people in the U.S. alone. The worst part is that it preys on people who are actually trying to protect themselves online by looking for anti-virus and anti-spyware products!
My family actually had this happen to us once. My husband was using the computer when a pop-up told him that he needed to run a scan on the computer.  He clicked on the link thinking it was the software on our computer. Unfortunately, it was just a pop-up ad and when he clicked on it, it downloaded a virus onto our computer.  Tricky, huh?
It also happend to Stevie Wilson, a blogger and scareware victim who lives in Los Angeles. She shared her story in the video below.

Here are 3 critical things you need to know about (continue reading...)