FTC Takes Aim at Computer Scareware Scammers

October 05, 2012

Chairman Jon Leibowitz announces a major international crackdown on tech support scams

From VOA Learning English, this is the TECHNOLOGY REPORT in Special English.

A court in the United States has announced a judgment of more than one hundred sixty million dollars against defendants in a “scareware” operation. The case named Kristy Ross, both individually and as an officer of Innovative Marketing, Inc. Two founders of the company, Sam Jain and Daniel Sundin, were found to be jointly liable for the fine.

The three are the last of eight defendants named in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission in two thousand eight. The FTC accused them of using dishonest methods to trick more than one million individuals into buying computer security software programs. This practice is known as “scareware.”

Robert Siciliano is a security expert with McAfee, the American computer security company. We spoke to him by Skype.

ROBERT SICILIANO: “Scareware is a form of computer virus that ends up on your PC and essentially tries to scare you into coughing up your credit card number to buy software that is supposed to fix your computer.”

Robert Siciliano says “scareware” often appears as a pop-up message on a computer.

ROBERT SICILIANO: “It’ll show a screen saying there is some bad virus on your PC. It shows up like the night in shining armor to protect you from this new virus that you’re computer just got.”