www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,978170,00.asp
According to a recent report from research firm GartnerG2, more than 20 million people have installed adware applications adware being a type of spyware that reports back on a subjects activities to serve up targeted advertising, and this covers only a portion of the spyware on the loose. Companies like DoubleClick use small files called cookies to track you online. Others, like WinWhatWhere, sell key loggers, which let others see your every keystroke. Trojan horses like Back Orifice and NetBus let hackers not only track your behavior but even take control of your PC. As Marc Heatherington found, spyware can reach your PC without your knowledge or explicit approval. This is always the case with ad cookies, yet another spyware subclass. More worrying are applications like Xupiter that install themselves on the sly. Trojans and certain key loggers weasel onto your system in much the same way. And of course, anyone with access to your machine can install a system monitor. Josh Libermanthe president of Net Sciences, a New Mexico business networking companyconstantly encounters spyware. I have never sat down at a client PC and not been able to pull spyware off of it, he says. Though he typically finds 20 to 30 spyware-related files, folders, and Registry values, one system at an Albuquerque law firm yielded over 300. In all likelihood, however, you willingly installed much of your spyware yourself when downloading another application. Most file-sharing servicesNapster-like tools for trading MP3s and other files across the Internetare bundled with spyware. Thats how file-sharing vendors make money while not charging for their products. It can learn user names, passwords, credit card numbers, addresses, and so on, to help fill in online forms. But it sends information about you, your computer, and your online behavior to Gators Web site. With ad cookies from a company like DoubleClick, you may not have lost much, but there are circumstances in which cookies can be used against you see our Reader Surveillance Report . According to Xupiters privacy policy, the company records more, including Web log information, IP addresses, browser type and versions, screen resolution, time zone, and version numbers of some software installed on your computer. Gator claims not to collect IP addresses, but it gathers what software is on the personal computer, your first name, country, and five-digit ZIP code, and more. The added danger is that these companies will pass this information on. When you first read Xupiters privacy policy, you might think the company closely guards the data it gathers. Only employees of Xupiter and its licensor will be authorized to have access to this information, it says.
The threat posed by key loggers, system monitors, and Trojans is even greater. A key logger can record anything you type, including your passwords, e-mail messages, real-time chats, and credit card numbers, and can even spy via Webcams attached to your PC. This information can be stored locally or silently sent out via e-mail. State and federal antihacking statutes say that without a contract, no one is allowed to deploy this sort of software. With certain types of spyware, howeverfor example, file-sharing services like Groksteryou actually agree to a contract. Theres a long list of terms and conditions you must accept on installation;
DoubleClick, for example, doesnt explicitly ask to load its ad cookies, but its partner sites privacy policies explain the process. That best way to protect against spyware is to run an application that identifies and removes it. Here, we review nine software packages that sweep away everything from cookies to adware to Trojans. Their developers have identified hundreds of spyware files, folders, and Registry keys and search for them on your hardware, offering to remove them when they turn up. Even if you locate spyware on your own, manually deleting it is difficult. Some spyware includes tricklers, which reinstall files as you delete them. An antispyware program is more likely to be able to eliminate the offenders. Like virus developers, Internet spymasters race to stay ahead of removal productssuccessfully, it seems, for the moment. Not one product we tested here measured up to even the basic standard that antivirus apps must meet. And since many are free or offer free scanners, we recommend you at least scan your system to find out whats really on your PC.
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