Scammers are charging victims to remove viruses that don’t exist

It’s bad enough dealing with real viruses, worms, and other malware

on your computer. Now scammers are charging to remove threats

that aren’t even there.

The Federal Trade Commission recently announced settlements

with two operations that it accused of tricking people into believing

their computers had viruses and then charging up to $429 to fix the

imaginary infections. The outfits called people or used Google paid

search to lure them to websites that claimed an association with

reputable antivirus software makers such as McAfee and Symantec

and computer titans such as Dell and Microsoft.

But there are other ways you can be bamboozled. Some websites launch pop-up windows saying

that your computer is infected and offering to scan it or remove the virus—for a fee. Even more

insidious are sites that stealthily install antivirus software that mimics the real thing, creating fake

scan results that show widespread infection. The bogus programs often have authentic-sounding

names. (We’ve seen System Care Antivirus and Antivirus Agent Pro.)

Such “ransomware” can disable many of your machine’s functions or hide programs and data files,

making it seem as though they’ve been deleted. Then it notifies you that it can repair the

problems—again, for a fee.