1. A CRAWLER BASED STUDY OF SPYWARE ON THE WEB Vijay Savanth The University of Auckland Computer Science Department vijaysavanth@gmail.com A. Moshchuk, T. Bragin, S. D. Gribble, H. M. Levy, “A Crawler-based Study of Spyware on the Web”, in Proceedings of the 13th Annual Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium (NDSS 2006), The Internet Society, 2006.

2. SUMMARY The paper aims at analyzing the effect spyware has on the internet, by conducting a study to address the following issues,  Determining the amount of spyware on the internet -Its distribution over a variety of sites, (game sites, adult sites, music sites, etc.) -The damage spyware can do -The types of spyware attacks, i.e. via executables or drive-by downloads  The rate of change of spyware over time

3.  APPRECIATION Commendable effort spent in creating a high performance, automated system that: Crawls the web, and downloads executables Automatically installs executables within a Virtual Machine that contained Windows XP Analyzes if the installation caused spyware infection Uses trigger conditions to detect drive by downloads Rolls back to a clean state

4.  CRITICISIM Test environment contradicts aim – “ In this paper we change perspective, examining the nature of the spyware threat not on the desktop but from an internet point of view ”  Windows XP was the only Operating System considered.  Internet Explorer was the main browser used, (Firefox gets a brief mention).  What about websites/programs in a language other than English?  Tends to be desktop oriented rather than internet oriented.

5.  CRITICISIM (contd.) What is the author trying to convey?  Is spyware increasing or decreasing?  How is the distribution or rate of change of spyware affecting the internet?  Raw results provided without much analysis.

6. QUESTION ??? Spyware is quite common on the internet, but will the extent or distribution of spyware affect user browsing behavior in a given environment?