One in three PCs hosts spyware or Trojans
A Survey of 650,000 consumer PCs found 18 million instances of spyware
by Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 16 Jun 2004
An average of one in three PCs scanned in March and April was carrying a system monitor or Trojan horse hidden on its hard drive.
The research, carried out by privacy firm Webroot Software and ISP EarthLink, warned that these sorts of spyware can forward information about a user's online activities to another individual or company without the user's knowledge or permission.
Scans of 650,000 consumer PCs performed between 1 March and 30 April found more than 18 million instances of spyware.
Trojan horses are applications that appear to be genuine software programs, but instead hide secret and malicious code that can allow hackers to gain unrestricted access to computers while users are online.
"Consumers should be aware of the purpose of all the applications and files residing and running on their machines," said Matt Cobb, vice president of core applications at EarthLink, in a statement.
"While certain types of spyware are malicious, other programs can be used to improve users' internet experiences.
"After the discovery of harmful spyware, users need to take action to immobilise or remove the programs that they don't want on their machines."
Nick Lewis, managing director of Webroot UK, added: "Based on the
overwhelming number of spyware traces identified in just four months,
we continue to urge consumers to run an audit as soon as possible to
determine if they have spyware on their PCs and then take action to manage
it."
Spyware
Spyware is software that gathers information about a user, usually without their knowledge or informed consent, and then passes this data to others.
As with computer viruses it comes in various forms but, in contrast, much of what is commonly referred to as spyware is currently perfectly legal.
The information it gathers is used by companies to target users with tailored advertising, interrupt their online experience with annoying pop-up windows and bombard them with unwanted emails promoting products and services.
While most of us wouldn't worry too much about something that tracks the websites we use, other spyware can record highly sensitive personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers.
This is far more worrying, especially for the millions of us who use online shopping and banking services.
Check out vnunet.com's Special Report for all the latest stories and analysis.
Take Action to remove it!
Visit a site like Spychecker.com for
solutions and removal tools
Whether you are concerned about your online privacy or have suspicions that someone may be spying on your PC activities, you'll find a solution here that you can download and try, or even use it for free. The site claims all software has been downloaded and tested before it was listed.
Other free software includes Adaware from Lavasoft, Spybot (current magazine recommended), etc.
You could visit a site like the Anti-Spyware Software Review site for a review of the top 10 packages.
The recommendation is to RUN two individual products as a single one will not usually find ALL the spyware on your system.
Alternatively, try typing spyware into your favourite Search Engine and see what that throws up. You might just be surprised at the results!
Don't forget to update the software!
Just like your antivirus package, the anti-spyware also needs to be kept up to date in order to be effective!
As more of these bits of Spy ware appear then it pays to keep your software up to date, especially if you use critical data on your machine for use in banking etc.
At the end of the day the choice is yours, but you know the old saying, better safe than sorry!
