BILBAO, Spain - Approximately 30 million Internet surfers have succumbed to fake antivirus programs that pinch people's money and personal information, according to security research firm PandaLabs.
PandaLabs went on to say that more than 7,000 variations of this sort of malware are currently infecting computers worldwide, and the number is growing.
The usual suspects are to blame, including downloading questionable content from file sharing sites, nefarious email attachments of unknown origin and cryptic Web pages.
Some users are easily coerced into clicking on pop-up windows alleging a computer is infected in an attempt to fix the issue.
Thankfully the majority of Internet surfers know better than to fork over private information because a few pop-ups told them to.
PandaLabs estimates 3 percent of users foolishly provide personal details to these virulent vendors. "Extrapolating from an average European price of €49.95, we can calculate that the creators of these programs are receiving more than €10 million per month," writes PandaLabs.
