Is Your Computer Spying on You!

By Maurice Brown

Has your computer recently slowed down or exhibited sluggish performance? Have you noticed frequent pop-up boxes or strange web pages while surfing online? If so, your computer may very well be infected with spyware. Also known as adware, malware, trackware or snoopware, spyware is essentially a small program that is downloaded to your computer to track which sites you visit on the internet. This information is then used by advertisers to send online advertisements (or pop-up boxes) to your computer while you surf online.

But aside from the annoyance of continuous pop-ups and reduced computer performance, spyware can potentially cause much greater harm by allowing personal information stored on your computer to be sent out over the internet. Bank accounts, credit card numbers, tax information, social security information and medical information are all potentially at risk to be stolen from computers that have been infected by spyware. This is possible because many websites that you visit collect this information and store it in little files on your computer known as cookies. These cookies remember information that you type in at certain sites such as passwords, account information and user names. This allows those websites to retrieve that information from your computer once you return. But this information can also potentially be retrieved by other programs and sent across the internet to thieves waiting to steal vital personal information from you. But the majority of spyware is used to monitor your online activities and report this information to a third party. This third party, usually an online advertiser, uses this information to send you pop-up ads that they feel will be of interest to you. In some cases they even change your internet homepage or list of favorite sites to ones that point to their products or companies.

But just how is spyware downloaded to your computer in the first place? In most cases it is installed on your computer as a hidden addition to legitimate programs. Many companies that offer free software programs (or freeware) bundle spyware with their program as a means to support the cost of the program. Advertisers pay them to include software that will report your online activities. Just about all of the well known programs that are used to download music and movies files such as Napster, Kaaza and Limewire, contain some form of spyware bundled with them. Also, most of the free programs on the internet that claim to speed up your internet connection contain one type of spyware or another. Some websites embed these programs on their web pages so that just one visit to their site is all it takes to infect your computer. Spyware can also be sent to you as an attachment in an email message – open the attachment and your machine becomes infected with spyware.
If you believe that your computer may be infected with spyware, there are several things you can do to detect and remove it. One thing you can do is to install programs that can detect and delete it. The website at download.com. (http://www.download.com) has many programs available that will search for these programs on your computer and remove them. Another way to prevent spyware is to never open attachments in email unless you know whom they came from and what they are for. There are also websites on the internet that can check your computer for you and remove any spyware they find. One of the better sites can be found at:

http://www.webroot.com/services/spyaudit_03.htm.

While these steps alone may not entirely solve your spyware problems, they will at least get you on the right track to solving an increasingly troublesome problem for online users.