In a Wednesday announcement, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has revealed that a $163 million fine has been imposed by a federal court against Kristy Ross and her `Innovative Marketing' firm, for using scareware to trick over one million people in making needless payments to fix non-existent problems with their computers.

The well-thought-out and elaborate scareware scam ran between 2000 and 2008, with Ross and her company coming up with online ads that essentially displayed a bogus system-scan alert, which supposedly detected malware on the computer systems.

The ads hoodwinked computer users into purchasing the software - each payment varying between $40 and $60 - for fake malware-detection scans, and to clean up the PCs by fixing nonexistent problems.

According to the FTC, the phony clean-up software was available by different names - including WinFixer, WinAntivirus, WinFirewall, InternetAntiSpy, ComputerShield, PopupGuard, ErrorSafe, XP Antivirus, and DriveCleaner, among a few others - and over one million computer users were tricked into buying it.

The FTC announcement also disclosed that, over and above a $163 million penalty, a permanent ban has also been imposed by the court on Ross - the woman behind the scareware con - to prohibit her from `the marketing and sale of computer security software and software that interferes with consumers' computer use, as well as from engaging in any form of deceptive marketing.'