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I just had,
by mistake, a plug-in called Intelligent Explorer attach to my browser. What a
nightmare! I have another article on
this topic, but this brings home a point. Spyware or adware items are continually infecting computers. Most
computers have no protection from them. Most frightening is the frequency of
them. From the InfosecWriters web site,
"According to a 2004 survey by America Online and the National Cyber
Security Alliance, 91% of users questioned were familiar with the term spyware.
Only 53% believed their computers were infected, but a scan found that 80% of
their PCs had some type of spyware installed on them." It goes on to say, "...The average number of spyware
components per computer was 93 with one computer having well over a
thousand."
What is
Spyware?
Butte
College (www.bctv.butte.edu/support/spyware.html) offers this definition
“The term ‘spyware’ is broadly defined as any program that gets into your
computer without permission and hides in the background while it makes unwanted
changes to your user experience.
Spyware is generally not designed to damage your computer. The damage it
does is more a by-product of its main mission, which is to serve you targeted
advertisements or make your browser display certain sites or search results.
At present, most spyware targets only the Windows operating system (Internet
Explorer).”
To be fair,
spyware can be harmless, for example tracking cookies don’t do much. While such
things infringe on your privacy, they don't really harm anything. Others,
however, are extremely dangerous
So what do
you do about it?
No spyware
program seems to do everything, but there are a lot of goods solutions out
there that can help. Here is a list of some of the top Spyware tools to look
at:
1) Try
Ad-Aware 6.0 Professional from LavaSoft (there is also a free version with less
functionality
2) Spybot
Search & Destroy from PepiMK Software
3) Xoftspy
form Pareto Logi
5) Spyware
Guard from Javacool Software is a free progra
4) Pest
Patrol (now part of Computer Associates by acquisition
5) McAfee
Anti-Spywar
One thing is
for certain: you do need to take spyware seriously. For some reason, too many people out there
think anti-virus solutions are the end-all solution. They are not.
And, when all else fails
Finally, as drastic as it seems, if your computer has been infected with a
large number of spyware programs, the only solution you may have is backing up
your data, and performing a complete reinstall of the operating system.
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