Fear of losing money if you pay the ransom or if you don't pay the ransom? They certainly don't want to make you fear paying the ransom, because that would mean

Fear of losing money if you pay the ransom or if you don't pay the ransom? They certainly don't want to make you fear paying the ransom, because that would mean you won't pay and they wouldn't profit. Fear of losing money if you don't pay the ransom: yes. But this could sort of apply to many salespeople, marketers, negotiators. They want to make it sound very good to take the deal and very bad (yes, maybe scary) to not take the deal. The way the fear is targeted between ransomware and terrorism is also quite different. Terrorism wants the general public to be scared. Ransomware doesn't want the general public to be scared, because that would lead to people patching their systems, reducing future profit opportunities.