What is spyware?
Part 1.
What is spyware? Since you’re reading a blog full of articles on getting rid of it, I assume that at some point you must have asked yourself exactly what it is. Well, spyware has been around for a long time. The first account of spyware was back in the mid 1990s, around 1995 when it was found in a Usenet post which made jokes about Microsoft and the way that they conducted business. The software then took on more of an espionage caricature but was later brought to its present form by the group at Zone Labs, who, on the release of their personal firewall product, used the term in press release and from then on spyware has become synonymous with “pesky hard to get rid of software”.
Since the 1990s, the problem of spyware has grown exponentially. Marketing groups use spyware to try to get a competitive edge by obtaining a more specific user base, crackers use spyware to make money. If a person can write a very effective, hidden program they can make a lot of money by taking the captured data and selling it to the highest bidder. Spyware today isn’t just a nuisance; it’s a major security threat to both businesses and individuals alike. Spyware predominately targets the Windows operating system, this is because (1) there are far more Windows users than there are users of other operating systems and before Internet Explorer 7 was released, the browser’s default action was to install ANY ActiveX control that was on a website. Most of these spyware installations would use either the aforementioned ActiveX or exploit JavaScript to install software unknowingly to the user’s hard drive. Once on the hard drive, the software first had to modify the registry to ensure that it would survive a reboot. The software then checks at random intervals to ensure the links remain to prevent users from deleting the links then rebooting to get rid of the software. Spyware has no replication mechanism, unlike a virus or a worm (which is just a virus with an internet replication mechanism). I would like to point out that nearly all spyware infections require user dialog of some nature, rather it be totally of the user’s consent or not is another story, but the infections usually involve the user clicking “yes” somewhere on a website dialog. Another next major route of infection is through shareware or “screen savers”. They install and monitor your every move on the computer.
A user who suspects that their computer is infected with spyware should notice that their computer is becoming slower and a lot less responsive to their actions and commands. The user should back their data up (burn a CD with important files ONLY) and reformat the computer, because at some point, the fight on the computer for control is just a lost cause, otherwise they can download one of the free spyware removal tools and try to get rid of it that way.
