People Fooled By Fake Pop-Ups
September 25, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
A study has shown that people often can't tell the difference between genuine pop-up messages and fakes ones.
Pop-ups. If you don’t have a pop-up blocker on your browser then they can be a pain, arriving at unexpected time, often the worst times. Many of the fakes ones are a way to get malware onto your computer.
But the BBC reports that a study at North Carolina State University has shown that people were fooled by fake pop-up messages 63% of the time – although they’d been warned that some of the pop-ups they’d be seeing were fakes.
According to study co-author Michael Wogalter, the study “demonstrates how easy it is to fool people on the web." To him it also indicates that the wording of genuine pop-up messages need to reconsidered. But, he adds,
"I don't know if you could develop a legitimate message that could not be duplicated and used illegitimately."
The simple solution? Install a pop-up blocker, then you won’t have to worry.
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