Protecting users by all possible means is one of the priorities of all technological companies. Microsoft, in this sense, introduces a new function that, from the browser, will protect you from possible scams.
As cybercriminals are inventing new scam systems, companies in the technological sector are also looking for additional ways to protect us. And, what we are seeing more recently, is the introduction of new protections directly in browsers. That’s right, as Microsoft introduces its new system.
Fighting the Scareware
There are many types of scam, but this time Microsoft reinforces to reduce the incidents that occur with those known as scareware. Maybe the term does not sound a lot, but it is a type of fraud that is very widespread. They are the scams that also receive the name of technical support scams.
In this type of fraud, the user meets a web page in which, in a quite aggressive way, he is induced to think that his team is infected. From there, an emergency feeling is created to convince the victim of the supposed risk to which he is facing. The next step of the scammer is to ensure that, then the victim makes a phone call to a technical support number that is obviously totally false. That causes the next step in the scam and, at that time, the user is already facing a great risk of falling into the cybercriminal trap.
How are they going to protect us?
What Microsoft has developed is a Scareware attempt blocker that will be included in its Edge browser and uses an advanced Machine Learning technology system to avoid scams. For now it can already be tested in the Preview versions and everything indicates that it will be a characteristic that can be accessed globally in a short time. Its objective is to complement the protection service that it already offers to defend Smartscreen, so that users can navigate a little quieter and have an additional protection layer.
With the intention of protecting users, the operation of this Scareware blocker acts at the time it detects that we are going to open a full -screen page. The system uses Machine Learning to be able to deduce that we are exposing ourselves to one of these scams and thus prevent us from ending up falling into the trap. As in the case of systems that already use SmartScreen, this Microsoft technology compares the full screen page with thousands of other examples that are already stored and recorded as scams. This comparison generates an answer that, in the case of finding coincidences or detecting that it is a scam, will prevent the user from being exposed. In addition, Microsoft indicates that everything works locally and that no image is transmitted through the cloud nor is nothing stored.
From the moment in which this Scareware blocker detects a possible scam, he informs the user of the situation and asks that he only click to continue if he is really sure that it is not a scam. However, so that the user’s decision can be more effective, this protector not only issues the notice, but shows the possible victim a small miniature of the page he was going to load. In this way, try to teach what would happen to continue with navigation and thus avoid scares.
At the time the user is in this situation and decides not to click, he will have the opportunity to report the scam page that had been found. This is vital for the Machine Learning system to continue defending other people who can find themselves in the same situation. To this we must add that, in addition, it will also be possible to report false positives. And Microsoft asks that they also report them with the intention of continuing to improve the development of this technology so that it can protect all users.
