Yianni Patsalos
Dr. Wolf
March 16, 2006
Computers in
Society
Spyware, Your New Nuisance
Today in society, new technology
becomes a thing of the past relatively quickly. Here today old tomorrow but
technology makes our lives easier and the more advanced it gets the
better/easier it could possible make your life. But down the line of technology
there are always those individuals who try and use technology to take advantage
of people. These are called bad people. They create viruses; steal identities,
and many other bad things that put people at risk to be affected negatively.
Viruses, for a while, have had computer users on the lookout. Companies have
spent years and lots of man power designing and creating anti virus software to
keep computer users safe from viruses. But like I said, technology moves on and
now besides viruses, we have to worry about spyware. “Spyware is considered by
computer experts to be one of the biggest nuisance and security threats facing
PC users in the coming year” (BBC). Spyware,
the new age virus so to speak, is a clever dog with new tricks that have the
intent to make your computing life miserable.
Spyware is the new internet threat. For
a while, computer users had to worry about being unlucky downloading or being
sent a virus. Now, while we surf the web, were vulnerable to downloading
spyware at almost any site. Research shows, “spyware on your PC is a major
threat to both privacy and productivity. Recent consumer studies indicate that
80% of PCs have some form of spyware infestation, and the PCs that were
infested had an average of 90 spyware programs in place. Fortunately there are
good, free tools available that can remove the threat from your system and
immunize against future infestations” (pipeline). Despite these free tools,
that doesn’t keep the average user safe because many new users don’t know about
the recently new threat. Spyware steals information off your computer in a very
sneaky way. When visiting a website, users unknowingly download spyware against
their will plus, a lot of software new or old, are now available and
distributed on the internet that have spyware already included in its
installation package. Since computers have the ability to remember anything you
put input into it, spyware is a serious threat to privacy. “Advertising spyware
will monitor the surfing and/or searching activity of any person using the
machine on which it is installed. That information is transmitted over the
internet, usually to the company responsible for creating the software. The
information is stored in a database, usually for marketing purposes.
Information from this database might be sold to third parties. The software
usually will display advertisements thought to be relevant to the interests of
the person(s) using the infected computer” (SpywareInfo). The spyware knows
exactly where to look thus stealing important information such as, credit card
information, passwords to various sites, programs, and it has a high infection
rate due to the fact that there is no way to filter spyware like we can with
viruses. We can only scan for the spyware after we already have it. Funny thing
is, is that since we have the spyware already. We are infected. We are infected
until the time that we actually download a spyware scanner, scan the computer,
and finally spot the spyware sneakily hidden in our computers. That is a long
time to be infected and be affected stealing information of the computer it’s
on, by the spyware. Spyware, besides stealing vital information, also has the
ability to control your computer, spread the spyware through E-mails, and has
the ability to use your computer as a server to maintain the spyware creators
operation. Spyware is becoming such a
problem within society that the government is doing something about it.
In
An internet user would think that its
trusted websites they browsed would not be affiliated with spyware companies or
creators, but they are. Yahoo.com, a vital example, is affiliated with spyware
companies that infect your computer on visitation to the site. Do you know how
many people visit Yahoo.com a day? They all receive spyware from visiting the site.
It a shame, “Google would never engage in such partnerships, but Yahoo /
Overture doesn't seem to mind the sleaze factor: showing ads through spyware
popups that appear on users' screens. That's one reason why [we shouldn’t] use Yahoo [or] Overture. Just like many
pharmaceutical companies, they'll seemingly do anything to make a buck”(news.com). Other countries are joining on the spyware
bandwagon as well.
Spyware is a growing threat to
internet users everywhere. Spyware is the new age virus that doesn’t necessarily
disable the computer but it actually spies and invades on the privacy of the
infected. Everyone has to deal with this problem and only over time will this
problem be corrected. We need to learn about spyware and figure out the in and
outs of the code to be able to disable its power. As technology advances we
will soon see spyware become a thing of the past, and hopefully soon.
Works Cited
1)
http://news.com.com/Yahoo+clamps+down+on+Claria+adware/2100-1024_3-5300287.html
2) http://www.securitypipeline.com/howto/57700342
3)http://news.com.com/Yahoo+clamps+down+on+Claria+adware/2100-1024_3-5300287.html
4)
http://news.com.com/Australians+take+aim+at+spyware/2100-1028_3-5704978.html?tag=nefd.top
5)
http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/spyware/