In the old days it was simple. There were viruses (virii if you wanted to sound like a hacker) and black hat hackers. These days just trying to stay on top on the different names of the threats is hard work.

I bring this up on the back of a post from the Internet Security Zone Blog that has coined the phrase 'Scareware' for those pop up warnings that appear on websites warning of spurious errors in the hope of persuading you to click on their links.

Let's recap, so now we have viruses, hackers, phising scams, malware, spyware, adware, scareware, badware, key loggers.

A cynic might suggest this helps persuade people they need a different program for each different type (although antivirus on its own is not enough) rather than just widening the remit of existing software. Please send your cheques for Tim's Nastyware Protection to the usual address...