Home | Contact | Services | Articles | Links

What is "Spyware"? Why is it bad?
[revised 6/2/2004]

Spyware is software installed on a user's computer without the user's knowledge or permission, which typically later gathers information about the user or the user's online habits (usually for marketing purposes) and reports back to the software's controller.

You probably have, or have had in the past, spyware installed on your computer -- without your knowledge.

"Spyware" is a generic term. Classes of spyware include non-commercial spyware, commercial spyware, adware, stealthware, hijackers, dialers, and malware.

• Non-commercial Spyware: The most common. Software that may keep track of you in some way you don't know about (your online surfing habits, what software's installed on your computer, and so forth). Generally, this category is only guilty of privacy violations.
• Commercial Spyware: Some spyware is legitimate. The Spyware category in fact includes useful commercial tools like keyloggers and network management tools. These are typically employed in large corporations where IT folks want to keep a close eye on their employees. This software can of course be misused, and is sometimes employed by hackers trying to steal a user's password or other information.
• Adware: Software that displays advertisements to you, sometimes used in conjunction with non-commercial spyware (so it knows what ads to target at you). This is mostly just annoying.
• Stealthware: Software that can clutter your computer screen with unwanted ads and plug-ins. The distinguishing characteristic of this category of spyware is that they often exploit Windows security flaws or low security settings in your Internet browser to install themselves -- just like viruses!
• Hijackers: Software that, once installed, takes over your Internet browser and takes you to sites you don't want to visit (like porn sites), changes your homepage, skews search results towards their advertisers, or deliberately redirects you to certain web pages for their advertisers.
• Dialers: Software that takes over your modem (whether or not you're using your computer at the time) and dials up long-distance phone numbers (typically porn sites) which rack up charges on your phone bill. (These are especially nasty because you often won't have a clue that this is happening until you get your next phone bill, and the phone company will NOT reverse the charges.)
• Malware: Malware stands for malicious software. It is software designed specifically to damage or disrupt a system. This term is used in general to apply to some spyware as well as viruses or trojans.

Spyware encompasses programs like Weatherbug -- which actually provide a useful service (weather info) but behind the scenes spy on you -- to TimeSink, which serves no other purpose than to secretly place ads in front of you. Most spyware is removeable, however, some "shareware" or "freeware" programs will not function if their spyware element is removed. However, you can almost always find another program that does the same thing without the spyware!

Spyware is different from a virus in that a virus is a malicious program designed for one purpose -- to damage or disrupt your system. Viruses are illegal and are produced by people who don't admit their identity. Spyware is produced by software companies and is technically legal, because technically you have to consent to having it installed. (Although some spyware gets around this restriction in various ways.)

Spyware is often bundled with other useful utilities, either as an integral part of the program (like Weatherbug) or as an "add-on" that installs with the program. (The Timesink spyware is an example of the latter. The Timesink program is bundled with many shareware programs, and installs itself at the same time, but even if you remove the original shareware program, Timesink stays on your computer!)

Interesting to note is that many software developers or software companies actually make money from placing spyware or adware in their product, which they then make available for free to users to download. It's how the software developers make money. I'm all for letting software writers make a buck, but they need to be more upfront with people about what they're getting.

Some spyware will install automatically when you visit a web page. It can only do this if you're using Internet Explorer with low security settings. To prevent this, use these methods:
1) Consider using a browser other than Internet Explorer. Try Netscape, Opera, or Mozilla. All are free. All are FAR more secure than IE.
2) Set IE to Medium or High (recommended) Security. To do this in Internet Explorer 6, open IE and go to Tools->Internet Options. Click the Security tab. Click on the "Internet" icon, then the "Custom Level" button. In the lower section, under "Reset custom settings", change the "Reset to" to Medium or High (I recommend High), then click the Reset button. Click OK, OK.

Spyware uses many sneaky ways to get itself installed on your computer. One common way is to appear as a browser plug-in. You've likely seen this: When you visit a certain website that requires a plug-in, Internet Explorer pops up a window asking if you want to install the plug-in, or else you can't view the page. Well, if you want to view the page, you install the plug-in -- you have no choice. So most people just click the "Yes" button automatically. Careful! You may have just installed spyware! They even warned you but you didn't read the fine print!

I've been asked if there's a way to block spyware at the server level. Nope. It's hard enough to block all viruses at the server level -- some might say impossible! However, there are programs that you can install which can scan for spyware -- just like an antivirus program (like Norton Antivirus or McAfee VirusScan) scans for viruses!

The anti-spyware programs come in two varities: free or paid. The free ones allow you to scan your computer manually and remove spyware. Some free ones and most of the paid ones will allow you to do that, plus will operate in the background and prevent spyware from even getting on your computer in the first place! (Just like an antivirus program!) Note that some free versions do NOT prevent spyware from being installed, but they will remove it once it's installed. You can set the anti-spyware programs to do a quick system scan every time a user logs in.

There are others, but these are the three I recommend:
Spywareblaster
Spybot Search & Destroy
Lavasoft Ad-Aware

I recommend using both Spywareblaster and Spybot Search & Destroy. If you're especially concerned that you have spyware installed that those two don't seem to find or deal with, then use Lavasoft Ad-Aware as well. Sometimes one will catch spyware that another misses.

When installing Spywareblaster and Spybot Search & Destroy, make sure to download any updates to the programs and enable all the automatic protection options.

Here are links to some other sites that have information about spyware:

OptOut (Gibson Research)
Counterexploitation
SpywareInfo
Spyware-Guide.com
PCWorld's spyware article list
Spychecker