Erica Larnerd COSC

Spyware...  What is it?  What does it do?  How does it get on my computer?  How can I tell if it’s on my computer?  What should I do if it’s on my computer?  Facts  Conclusion  Bibliography

 Type of malware  Collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge  Very hard to detect and remove manually  Often mistaken to be a computer virus

 Makes your computer run slower (particularly if there is more than one spyware program on your system)  Change your browser or computer settings (like your browser home page)  Deliver pop-up advertisements  Monitor and report which websites you visit  Install other spyware  Monitor and report what you type into your computer (in extreme cases)

 By “piggybacking” on other software applications (like free software, downloaded from the internet)  Browser settings are not set to a sufficiently high security levels  Visiting a website that distributes spyware (sometimes called drive-by-downloading)

 You see pop-up advertisements when you aren’t even browsing the internet  Your web browser home page keeps changing even after trying to set it back to your original home page  Your web browser has new toolbars that you did not install  Your web browser crashes or closes often  Your computer takes much longer to start, and programs seem to run much slower

 Use anti-spyware products to remove spyware, since spyware can be difficult to manually remove  Anti-spyware products such as..  McAfee Anti Spyware  Norton Internet Security – Antispyware edition  Others such as Microsoft Anti-Spyware, Sunbelt CounterSpy, Ad-Adware, and Spybot Search & destroy

 More than 80 percent of all personal computers are infected with some kind of spyware  The best Anti-Spyware program only finds 90% of Spyware (says a review in PC magazine)  The average home PC contains 30 pieces of spyware

 Spyware is a type of malware which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge and often thought to be a computer virus.

   port/security/security_spyware_help?c=us&l=en&s=g en&~mode=popup