People Fooled By Fake Pop-Ups

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.