Spy Ware

Software which intercepts your activities, or in some way reports your activities back to the provider or someone else - for market research purposes or otherwise. Often bundled with AdWare?. SpyWare can be relatively benign and merely collect statistics to be aggregated for marketeers, or it may be extremely intrusive and report on your keystrokes (including capturing passwords and sensitive financial information) and disk contents.

Also, something which Gator (and Gator's lawyers) have gone to extraordinary lengths not to be called.

If you happen to have spyware installed (or want to find out if you do), try one of these programs:

• Lavasoft's Ad-aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
• SpyBot http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php?lang=en&page=download [BrokenLink]
  • Try http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html instead

You may want to try several, as none is perfect at detecting all SpyWare in existence.

See also MalWare

---

Anti-spyware programs can identify and remove SpyWare from your system, but do not block SpyWare from returning. To prevent reoccurrence, you should investigate a FireWall and refrain from installing programs that include SpyWare in the installation. Also beware of TrojanHorse? programs that purport to be one thing (perhaps even an anti-spyware tool) but actually do something else.

---

The notorious CoolWebSearch

see http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39181782,00.htm

---

News, Developments and other resources

Spyware bill raises cookie fears

• See http://software.silicon.com/malware/0,3800003100,39127596,00.htm
  • A few years back there were concerns about "cookie poisoning"? I presume the problem is now considered to be manageable because sites can only read their own cookies without MalWare???? Any comments?

---

CategorySecurity