Move over H1N1; recent months have seen an uptick in a particularly sinister breed of virus, commonly called scareware.

This form of malware disguises itself to appear as though it is an anti-virus or anti-spyware program, when, in fact, it is exactly what it claims to prevent. Often, the rogue software will appear as a red shield in the system tray very similar to the yellow windows update icon, or in a web browser window designed to look just like Symantec or a similar anti-virus program interface. It will alarm the user that the computer has already been affected with spyware or malware, and urge them to click to scan the computer or clean the viruses off the hard drive. Of course, this will only download further malware, or require the user to purchase a registration key and refuse to remove the infection until that is done.


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