Imagine my surprise when I received a phone call from a friend who told me he'd been
victim of a "spyware" attack that left him shaking at his loss of privacy. I listened to his horror story with a sympathetic ear, but I felt secure since I carry anti-virus software and a firewall (both by Norton).
At his suggestion - and to my surprise - I ran a program called "Spy Sweeper" and found a veritable minefield of dangerous and harmful programs lurking on my computer.
"Spyware" is software that gets onto your computer and literally "spies" on your activities.
The spying can range from relatively harmless use of cookies tracking you across multiple websites... to extremely dangerous "keystroke loggers" which record passwords, credit cards, and other personal data. That data then gets relayed to person who put software on your computer.
Three primary types of spyware exist to complicate your online life, including:
1. "cookies" 2. "adware" 3. malicious programs like "keystroke loggers"
Cookies represent mostly a danger of lost privacy.
In theory, someone could use a "cookie" to track you across multiple sites, combine that data with several databases, and figure out a lot more information about you than would make you comfortable.
"Adware" tracks more than just your movement across sites, it spies on your installed software and computer habits to then serve up advertising, modify websites before you see them, and generally do things without your knowledge with intention of trying to get you to buy things.
"Keystroke loggers" and other malicious programs exist for one purpose: to cause personal mayhem and financial damage.
Spyware gets on your computer in one of several different ways.
First, it rides along with software you download from 'Net and install on your system.
Second, they come as email attachments (much like viruses) and automatically install themselves on your computer when you open email message.
