The fake McAfee popup message below is another scam cybercriminals use to frighten and trick potential victims into clicking the link in it. But, clicking the link in the fake popup message goes to a phishing website that steals online account credentials, personal and financial information that will be used fraudulently by the cybercriminals behind the scam.
The McAfee Popup Scam
If you were tricked by a McAfee popup message into disclosing your financial information, please contact your bank for help.
How to tell if a pop-up or notification is fake
Cybercriminals are smart enough to make their pop-ups look genuine, so it’s hard to tell if an alert is real. But here are a few ways to help you identify fake pop-ups:
- Look closely at the information shown by the pop-up before clicking any options. Does it seem genuine, or do the options shown seem unusual?
For example, the spoofed pop-up shown on the left has no text explaining why the pop-up has appeared. Compare that to the genuine McAfee pop-up at the beginning of this article, which includes a much more informative, and complete description.
- Does the message have spelling errors, unprofessional language, or bad grammar? Some scammers don't take care when creating their spoofed pop-ups. In these cases, the pop-up might contain badly worded messages that make it easier to identify as fake. For example, the Windows Action Center on the left spells McAfee with a lowercase 'a'.
- Does the message have bad quality logos or images? Poor images are a good indicator that the pop-up is fake. The example on the left contains a badly scaled McAfee image.
- Does the message contain a URL? A non-McAfee URL is an indication that the notification isn’t genuine, and not from McAfee.
For example, the URLs in the spoofed pop-ups shown on the left aren’t McAfee URLs. Non-McAfee URLs are another sign that the pop-up is fake. Also, consider that McAfee generally uses the mcafee.com domain, so messages from similar domains, such as mcafee.org, are likely to be fake as well.
- Do you even have McAfee software installed? If you see a pop-up that appears to come from McAfee, but you don't have any McAfee software installed, it's probably fake.