Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center has published an app to test if you can tell the difference between real antivirus software and an actual virus. The test presents you with screenshots of ‘antivirus’ programs – your task is to choose whether you think each one is real or rogue.
A rogue antivirus program may look genuine but is itself a virus – it pretends to ‘scan’ your computer and shows dire warnings that you have dozens of nasty virus infections that only it can remove – if you buy it… Because they try to scare you into paying, rogue antivirus programs are commonly called ‘scareware’.