Once installed, cybercriminals fly everything: personal data, passwords … and even your bank details.
A simple click may be enough to switch everything. Indeed, using a computer asks to stay constantly on guard. Online scams are increasing and becoming more and more sophisticated. False emails, trapped windows, fraudulent updates or misleading links: cybercriminals redouble ingenuity to deceive vigilance. Even the most cautious users can be trapped in no time. And this is precisely the principle of this scam: passing completely unnoticed … until it is too late.
Most people have already heard of the scam for false banking advisers, those with false SMS Colissimo, false taxes or false profiles on social networks. But do they know the scam with the false browser update? It is particularly formidable because it looks like a real alert. The window that appears perfectly imitates those of Chrome, Firefox or Edge: same logo, same style, same reassuring message. The user therefore thinks that he must really update his browser. And as we are often told that you have to stay up to date to be protected, many click without being wary.
The experts of the Gen group, which holds the Avast and Norton brands, published a report on May 28 which shows that this kind of scams increased sharply in the first quarter of 2025. “Among the tactics up sharply is the scam with the false browser update (as for Chrome or Opera) – Another form of Scam -Yourself – whose cases were multiplied by 17 in a quarter. The objective: to convince the victims to install an alleged update, “can we read in the document. Result: instead of installing a real one, it is malware that infiltrates the computer.
For the time being, this scam has targeted Belgium, Poland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. But there is no guarantee that France will be spared. And if she was hitting, the consequences could be serious. Malware installed in the gentleman can steal your passwords, bank data or photos. He can also spy on what you type, block your files or even control your computer remotely. And often it acts without you realizing anything.
Faced with this trend, specialists are quite alarmist: “In the future, we anticipate that the attacks by scam will continue to gain sophistication and magnitude. The combination of profiles generated by AI, dissemination of malware multiplatforms (including macOS) and advanced social engineering techniques suggest that these attacks will remain one of the most adaptive and complex categories of threats in the coming quarters.” In other words, caution remains more than ever!
