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Royal wedding scareware scams arise as Big Day looms

Orf with their heads

Spyware scammers have unsurprisingly latched onto the upcoming royal wedding as a theme for rogue anti-virus scams.

Royalists searching for terms related to the upcoming nuptials (e.g., "Middleton wedding dress idea") are likely to find links to scareware portals among the top results. Surfers who visit these portals will be encouraged to download software that falsely warns of non-existent security threats in a bid to trick marks into paying for worthless software.

Miscreants use search engine manipulation techniques themed around items in the news to drive traffic to such sites and the upcoming royal wedding is no exception. Indeed a similar scareware punting ruse was launched when Kate and Wills announced their engagement last year.

A write- up of the latest scareware scam can be found in blog posts by GFI Software (here) and Eset (here). ®

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