|
Imagine something that follows you home and sets itself up in your house. It
eats your food, enjoys your drinks, reads everything you bring home or purchase.
It runs up your phone bills and no matter where you go, it can follow you and
takes notes on everything you do.
Generically labeled spyware, your stealth visitor is a program or set of programs
designed to track your Internet activity. And, while it hasn't gone as far as
above, it can and will make your life uncomfortable.
The most benign form of spyware simply takes note of what types of websites
you visit and communicates the information to its source. For advertisers, this
adware form of spyware allowed them to only send advertisements you were likely
to be interested in.
The theory being that it saved wasting anyone's time on products you wouldn't
likely care about or want to buy. Of course, that was the theory. The practice
has become one of abuse, with so many packaged adware or spyware programs downloaded,
you may never know who is watching.
While there are different viruses that act spyware and render malicious damage
to your PC, bandwidth and sometimes your modem, spyware may take the same format
and render similar damage.
Most spyware is installed after downloading some type of free program or attachment
from someone you don't know. Sophisticated processes can hide in .dll files
and be incredibly difficult to remove even for spyware zapper programs.
The initial idea behind spyware or adware may not have been so bad. However,
they will take up lots of valuable CPU and RAM space on your machine, clogging
your Internet bandwidth, which can create noticeable delays when you are doing
normal day-to-day activities. It can slow down reboot processes because of adding
unwanted programs to your start up menu.
Those downfalls are just what happens with the programs not designed to hijack
your browser, point it at porn sites, download pornographic material, steal
your address books, stored credit card information or create a waypoint for
hacking into other's machines.
Spyware is a very real villain in the cyber world. The majority of computer
and Internet users do not believe these types of programs affect them, yet more
often than not; they have hopefully been protected by firewalls and anti-virus
software that combat them.
Avoiding irresponsible net behavior, such as downloading programs or files
from an unknown sender, the taking of free offers of packaged software, including
games, giveaways, software and utilities may prove detrimental to the life and
function of your machine. Many of these packaged programs carry hidden within
their walls spyware of some type.
So whether it is designed to discover which web merchants you visit most often
or what credit card information you have stored on your machine, spyware is
a very real threat in a world where the Internet is seemingly as important to
everyday activity as a pair of shoes. The best advice is to be aware, in addition
to installing anti-virus software with firewall.
About the Author:
Tom Jenson has worked in software development for 20 years. He's seen spyware
develop from an occasional problem, to a daily, hourly threat to all pc's. He
made it a mission to research these threats, and work out how best to combat
them. Now this series of article helps others protect their computers too |
