Microsoft

has started to roll out a new feature in its Edge browser called “scareware blocker” to protect users from increasingly sophisticated online scams, particularly those employing

scareware tactics

. The company announced the feature at its Ignite conference last November and is now inviting users to preview and test it.

Scareware scams employ aggressive web pages designed to deceive users into believing their system is infected with malware. These scams often pressure victims to call fake tech support numbers, potentially leading to financial loss and compromised personal information.
Microsoft says that its data revealed a significant rise in online scams, with Edge blocking five times more scams in 2024 compared to just three years prior. While Edge currently utilizes

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen

to block known scams, the new scareware blocker aims to provide a proactive defense against emerging threats.

Microsoft says that its scareware blocker leverages a machine learning model to identify the characteristics of scareware scams and empowers users to regain control of their browsing experience.
“Scareware blocker adds a new, first line of defense to help protect the users exposed to a new scam if it attempts to open a full screen page. Scareware blocker uses a machine learning model that runs on the local computer. The model uses computer vision to compare full screen pages to thousands of sample scams that the scam-fighting community shared with us. The model runs locally, without saving or sending images to the cloud,” Microsoft said.
Users can then choose to report the malicious site to Microsoft, contributing to the improvement of Defender SmartScreen's ability to detect and block similar scams across the web. Users can also report false positives, helping to refine the scareware blocker's accuracy and reduce the likelihood of legitimate pages being mistakenly blocked.