UFO Sightings

Google was a handy source of references to a law school student whose thesis was on money laundering. As a resource, this tool was very advantageous to the student during the writing of her paper. Several months after beginning this research, she began experience problems with being redirected towards sites not related to money laundering when she typed certain words.

Her hopes of it being an easy to repair problem with the internet or the search engine were dashed as the glitch refused to go away, and she was forced to concede that she had likely been bugged. Despite being annoying, when the bugging comes from a human, it can be gotten rid of. Adware and spyware, the computer bugs that infected the law school student’s computer, are not as easy to get rid of as human bugs. The law school student was definitely not an advanced student of technology, as she typically only used her computer for school related purposes of research and writing.

Many computer problems that give people like the student in the above scenario difficulty are caused by spyware and adware. In 2000, the word ’spyware,’ which had been around since 1995, became a fixture in most people’s computer dialogue. This refers to any software program or script which allows admission to the computer owner’s personal information.

This can be done through studying keystrokes, logging web browsing activities, and perhaps most worrying of all, the contents stored on a user’s hard drive. Although James Bond would be proud of the methods, these types of home infiltration via spyware happen every day in the real world. Calling people affected by these attacks victims is accurate, as no one wishes to have their online activities monitored. Spyware may help track criminals and their activities, but this type of program is used far more often for such vile activities as tracking credit card information from unsuspecting victims. Because of the hostile nature of these potential infiltrations, every computer should have an updated anti-spyware program.

Along with spyware, blocking adware and malware can help protect most individuals from attacks. It is not difficult to find, online, many helpful spyware and adware blocker programs. Blockers are a great resource because they forbid any future downloads of these nasty bugs and clean up and discard your system of current ones.

Summary

Thankfully, spyware, adware and malware do not self replicate the way that viruses and worms do, but they can cause similar malfunction in the day to day usage of computer activities. Slowing the computer down to a crawl is one of the nastier side effects of these malicious programs. Unfortunately for many computer owners, spyware programs can and do hide on their systems, causing havoc while being undetectable as the root of the problem. Knowing the immense damage these types of program can do, having a blocker to prevent them from setting up home on your system should be common sense.

Filed under: Computers & Technology