Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Understanding spyware


I've done a lot of research on the subject of spyware. The first thing is understanding spyware and I will start by telling you what it is. Spyware is a program that is downloaded secretly on your computer without your consent. These are sneaky programs that can track everything you do. It usually falls into two categories the advertisement type and the kind cyber criminals use.

The advertisement spyware's purpose is to advertise, hence the name. They collect information about you by tracking everything you do on the computer. This includes sights you visit, searches, emails and instant messages. The spyware will then usually send you excessive pop-up advertisements based on the information it collected. Other things this spyware will do is send you to certain sights that you don't intend to go to and change your settings and other things on your computer. This can be very annoying as most people know. It can also cause your computers speed to slow down, cause it to freeze, make it seem like it has a mind of its own and also cause your computer to crash.

The other type is used by thieves. There goal is to steal valuable information. Some of this info includes credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account info, and your passwords. You really don't want this kind. It operates by installing a program called key logger onto your computer. What a key logger does, is collect the valuable information input into your computer then send it to the third party. There are a lot of negative issues with this and this contributes to the reason why identity theft is becoming so common. This is probably the most important thing when understanding spyware.

Spyware is a huge pain in the a**. You should take certain measures to protect your computer.
For more information check out my sight -

Protecting your computer from spyware

- Here you will find useful information how to protect you and your computer. Hopefully this helped with understanding spyware.

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