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Spyware, Malware Evolving
With identity theft and internet security breaches becoming more and more common,the ability to detect spyware to protect your sensitive information while online isparamount
Washington, DC - 2/1/2006
Did you know that recently a Trojan Horse program was developed and used forindustrial espionage?
The Trojan Horse was used in the illegal hacking into scores of computers in Israel,including computers belonging to large and leading companies. The companies involveddid not know how important it was to have a spyware removal tool or tools to detectspyware. The perpetrators developed spyware programs that extracted computer filesand entire directories from infected computers. This material was then sent toservers abroad. The spyware was sold to private investigators, which offered theirindustrial espionage services to various companies.
In this case, the perpertrators (a husband and wife team!) were eventually caughtand deported. But by that time, the damage had already been done. Those corporationsthat had been victimized already had their sensitive corporate secrets floatingaround in cyberspace and who knows where else! If they had known how to detectspyware, they might be much better off.
In another case, a routine Internet security report that was run on a largecompany's computer users revealed that some computers were logging thousands of hitsa day to the same IP address. The web site had nothing to do with the company, andthe network administrator at first thought that employees were conducting theirpersonal business on the internet or otherwise slacking off.
After rather intense investigation, and a routine check to detect spyware, it wasrevealed that spyware was tracking employees' computer usage habits and was sendingthe information back to a third party website automatically. This company used acombination of a spyware removal tool and restricting internet access to preventthis happening to them again.
Even in large corporate environments, spyware can cause tremendous damage - it cancompromise data security Spyware and significantly slow down computer performance.
The lesson here is this: if spyware/malware can compromise even the mostsophisticated business computer systems, then small business owners who have evenmore to lose can't afford to take internet security lightly! Here are 5 tips thatspyware may be compromising your network security:
1. Your computer began running extremely slow2. Homepage changes without you doing it3. Suddenly you are being bombarded with popup advertisements4. A large increase in the amount of unsolicited email (commonly known as SPAM)5. Your computer experiences frequent crashes
Other helpful information regarding spyware can be found at:http://www.alertcomputer.c om.
