English Dictionary

Define dictionary terms easily in our powerful online English dictionary.

Searching for...

No matching words found

Try a different search term or browse the dictionary

Definition scareware in British English

scareware noun

noun
1

fake warning messages that come up on your computer screen, eg telling you that you have a virus and offering software to fix it. However this virus software is actually designed to make your computer more vulnerable to attack and allows criminals to obtain your credit card details which can then be used for identity theft scams.

Example

We had a scareware alert on the office network last week.

Definition scareware in British English