IE boss: don't let scarewarers win

Microsoft's general manager of Internet Explorer and consumer security, Amy Barzdukas, used her keynote at the RSA Conference Europe show in London today to warn industry not to contribute to the gains of illegal scareware peddlers.

Aside from her other major theme, promoting IE8 as the best browser in the world ever, Barzdukas quite rightly pointed out that users need to be educated without being scared.

"We haven't struck the right balance of how to inform users without terrifying them," she added.

In the keynote following, Soca and FBI representatives highlighted just how lucrative a market scareware has become, pointing out several affiliates in scareware programs who are making in excess of $100,000 a month by profiting from the fear and lack of awareness of consumers.

Barzdukas also urged industry to better understand how consumers interact with computers and how they treat security warnings.

She used IE8, naturally, as a good example of how to minimise the risk of end users making the wrong decisions and ignoring security warnings presented on the screen in front of them.

She detailed features such as a pop up box which appears to warn users if they are about to download potentially malicious software. Instead of having a continue button the same size as a cancel instruction, the Microsoft team has worked to minimise the former, she said.