Scare­ware

This term is made up from the words “scare” and “soft­ware”. Based on mis­leading alert mes­sages pointing e. g. to an infec­tion of your device, you are sup­posed to become so scared and unset­tled that you feel actu­ally pres­sured, for instance into buying a dubious “anti-virus pro­gram” (which is then useless).

See also: Mal­ware