And you shouldn’t be, either. ScareWare is a popup window that appears on your web browser. The wording is meant to scare you into believing there is a virus on your computer. The purpose of ScareWare is to get people to pay money to resolve a problem that doesn’t actually exist. People naively spend hundreds of dollars on this scam.

Who’s affected? Anyone with a web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Google Chrome or Firefox as examples). If you see a popup like this, do not call the number. Beware of phrases like:

• “Call us immediately.”
• “Computer access will be disabled.”
• “Further damage to your network.”
• “Your computer alerted us.”
• “Information is being stolen.”
• “You must contact us immediately.”
• “Call us within 5 minutes to prevent your computer from being disabled.”