What is spyware and how it works?

Posted by Avijit on August 21st, 2010

Now a day, spyware is not a simple irritating thing for you and your organization. It is proved that, nearly 90% of desktop computer infected by some kind of spyware(Source ? US National Cyber Security Alliance).

There are different types of spyware. The classification is given below ?

Tracking cookies ? cookies are generally used for store some user information. Different websites use these techniques to give a flexible user experience. But the malicious programmers or some organizations use these techniques to tracking user activity. Usually, cookies stores the information like ? user?s personal preference, IP address, login information, date and time stamp etc?


Adware ? this variation of spyware is generating annoying popup, banner, animated advertising or even it can hijack your browser, means ? if you want to open any web page, the spyware simply redirect you to its own. This type of spyware also increases the probability to get infected by some other computer viruses. Adware generally uses the advanced scripting languages, such as ? Active X components, operating system access and directly access the browser?s property. Adware also have the capability to change your browser and operating system settings like it can write / change registry values. There are another type of harmful Adware now in wild, basically it launches another spyware or Trojan while the user will click on the ?YES or ?NO? button.

Scumware ? this genre of spyware modify the web page content by adding some hyperlinks, or adding some alternative texts not only that, other variants of this malware can run a background process which kill the CPU speed and other resources. This type of Scumware uses the <iframe> tag inside the web page, that?s why it is commonly known as iframe virus, but this is not a virus- it is a type of Scumware. This type of Scumware mostly used for competitive advertisement purpose.

Malware

Commonly, malware referred to viruses, Trojan hoses, and worms. Now this term universally applied for all destructive form of software. Installing hidden service, key loggers also under these categories. That malicious software behaves like spyware and they are equally harmful.

Spyware variants and associated risk  - in maximum cases, the spyware developers frequently change their harmful program to make it un-detectable for anti-malware programs. They change their program and add some other harmful way to stolen information and leak your information.

Eliminating the risk ?
Here are some aspects, using this you can protect your computer form those malicious software ?

-    Using updated antivirus
-    Using dedicated anti-spyware software
-    Using anti-malware software

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Avijit

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Avijit
Joined: August 9th, 2010
Articles Posted: 48

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