Scareware
Scareware is software or a web page that fakes a security alert in order to frighten the user into buying a useless product or installing malicious software.
What is Scareware?
Definition
Scareware is software or a web page that fabricates a security alert — a fake infection count, a countdown, a warning dressed up to look like the operating system — in order to frighten the user into acting. The goal is either payment for a product that does nothing, or installation of the very malware the warning claimed to have found. In cybersecurity terms it is social engineering wearing a technical costume, and the reliable defence is procedural: warnings about your machine come from software you installed, never from a web page you happened to open.
Role in cybersecurity
Scareware plays an important role in building organizational resilience against cyber threats. Implementing appropriate mechanisms in this area is required by regulations such as NIS2, DORA and ISO 27001.