“If you want to avoid spyware, there are certain parts of the Web you should stay away from,” says Dave Cole, director of Symantec Security Response. “They’re the dark alleys of the Internet world. Basically, you visit a game cheat site, and you’re vulnerable for spyware. A children’s site will open you up to adware.”
Rigorous assessment of drug safety, pre- and post- drug approval is essential to protect and promote public health. Attend a free web cast and discover statistical and graphical methods to best analyze and report safety data. (Ideal for pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies).
 Although spyware has been called the plague of the Internet, many people still regard the invasive software as a kind of digital Avian flu. “Yes, it’s bad and potentially very threatening, but it’s the kind of thing that only happens to other people,not me.”Unfortunately, that way of thinking could be a big mistake.The prevalence of spyware, which usually slithers onto a system undetected during a download of other content, is formidable and poses a very real danger to every Internet user.”You name it, spyware can do it,” says Craig Schmugar, virus research manager at McAfee Avert Labs, which monitors Internet threats. “Everything from stealing your identity to turning your machine into a spam relay machine to popping up ads on your system. It can degrade your system performance to the point that using your machine is unbearable.”Defining the ThreatSpyware is a term that can be broken down into two categories, Schmugar said. In the first category are the illegal, information-stealing threats, such as Trojan viruses and “keylogger” programs that track user input. These are the villains of the Internet, and they pose a considerable risk to users. These types of programs are on the rise because the collected data can be quite profitable if sold.Not all spyware is designed to be so harmful, though. The second category consists of programs intended to simply redirect users to different Web sites, or to collect general information on browsing habits.”Advertisers often use spyware to cover competitors’ Web sites,” says Ben Edelman, a Harvard University researcher who focuses on spyware. Consider, just hypothetically, “Where better could [a company like] Netflix get a new customer than someone about to sign up with Blockbuster?”If a legitimate business wanted to employ spyware, Edelman notes, it would first hire an ad network. This company would then hire another ad network, which would buy advertising space from a spyware vendor. This chain of companies distances the legitimate business from spyware activity while still giving it an edge in the marketplace.Although this type of spyware, also called adware, might not be designed to hijack a system or steal identities, it still can be annoying. Working in the background, it can gobble up processing power, severely slow down a system, and even cause frequent crashes. It might also prompt a significant increase in pop-up ads, an Internet phenomenon that is almost universally despised. |
