Just because you trust CNN, doesn't mean you should trust the banner ads that you see on the CNN.com website. In a nutshell that's the conclusion that can be drawn after an incident with Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger over the past few days.

The messenger software served up advertisements for so-called scare-ware: software that claims to offer free security scans and magically spots numerous viruses. It then scares the user in purchasing a commercial version of the security software to clean up the phantom mess.

20 Feb 2007

Microsoft is scared and promised a review of its advertising process. But if rogue advertisers can slip through this time, they no doubt will be able to do again in the future. They may not be able to fool Windows Live Messenger a second time, but there are plenty of other victims waiting to be had.

The online security scare isn't going away. We're just beginning.