Defintion: Spyware

A technology that assists in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, "spyware is programming that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties." As such, spyware is cause for public concern about privacy on the Internet. 
 

Spyware

For the past couple of years there has been a new threat introduced to your computer that anti virus software does not as of yet remove. This software is developed to track your movements on the Internet, create statistics of what you do on your computer, or even worse, actually hijack your web connections to direct you to pages that you did not ask for. These types of programs are called Spyware, Browser Hijackers, and Dialers.

Before we define Spyware, Hijackers and Dialers it is important to understand another type of program called Adware. Adware are programs that are usually free, otherwise known as Freeware, that have advertisements built into the software. That means when you run the software, it will pull down advertisements from the Internet and display them somewhere in the software. Most of these types of software allow you to register the software, by paying some fee, in order to remove the ads.

Spyware, on the other hand, are pieces of software that are advertised as Freeware or Adware but that install in your computer, generally without your knowledge, other programs that run in the background collecting data about what web sites you go to, your personal information, the games you play, the software you use, etc, all without your permission. The software will then send this information back to the creator's servers where it is collected.

There are many different types of Spyware and I have described a few types below.

Adware Networks
Ad networks are companies that pay software developers and web sites money for allowing their ads to be shown when people use their software or visit their sites. These ads are generally in the form of popups and present you with some sort of advertisement. The problem with these networks is that they place cookies on your computer each time you open an ad served by the particular network. This allows the advertising network to track your movements across the Internet by reading the information contained in the cookies every time you connect to a site that they are on. Networks that employ this method are ones like Double Click, Value Click, Gain, and Radiate.

Backdoor Santas
These are programs that you download off the Internet and contain valid uses. They do though, collect statistics of your computer use, the sites you go to, the type of hardware, etc and transmit this information back to their servers. They generally do not work with adware networks. Programs of this type are Comet Cursor, Alexa, Hotbar, and Cuteftp.
Stalking Horses
These types of spyware are generally bundled into many popular programs and often, but not always, are presented in the installation as desirable additions to the main software, the trojan horse, that you are installing. Example programs of this type are EZula's TopText, Cydoor, Onflow, and Webhancer.
Trojan Horse.
These types of software are usually very popular downloads and are free downloads. They almost always contain at least one Stalking Horse and software for ad-serving networks. Many times you are given the option to install these stalking horses or ad-serving program, but they are sometimes hidden in the fine print of the Trojan Horses License Agreement. In some situations, if you choose not to install the Spyware, you will not be able to use main program or Trojan Horse. Examples of programs that are Trojan Horses are KaZaA Media Desktop, Grokster, and Morpheus .

There are other types of malicious software that can be installed on your computer. They are described as follows.

Browser Hijackers
Software that tends to Hijack your browsers web connections to do their own purposes. They will change your homepage to another homepage no matter how many times you change it or you can do a search in Google, but instead of getting the results back from Google, your search request is actually hijacked and sent to another search engine.
Dialers
Software that gets installed on your computer that has the ability to make phone calls from your computer, if you have a modem, without your knowledge. These programs will connect to other computers, through your phone line, which are usually porn sites. These numbers are pay per call though, so you get charged for the amount of time your computer is connected to it
Malware
Software that gets installed on your computer without your knowledge that changes system settings, not limited to your browser settings, that cause harmful effects to occur on your computer.

It is also important to note, that practically all Spyware and Hijackers tend to target Internet Explorer and not other browsers such as Netscape or Mozilla Firefox. If you are not against switching your browser, then you can switch to an alternate Web Browser and immediately greatly reduce your risk of infecting your computer with one of these programs. If you are willing to switch browsers, I would recommend Mozilla Firefox.


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