Spywares as Viruses - Essay Example

Summary: Wise people always say “There are no Free Lunches, there is a cost associated with everything”. Even the convenience and hassle free internet banking and online shopping have cost associated with them. A cost in terms of the risk of losing the sensitive data to the hackers who use smart softwares called as spyware. Spyware is the software that transfers the vital information surreptitiously from the user’s system to any other intended system. A spyware can attack your system if you install a freeware that has a spy ware as an application package or your browser automatically installs program without seeking your permission and ends up installing a spyware or you click on a pop up and that triggers a program to install a spyware onto your machine. Apart from hackers, spywares are mainly created by the advertisement companies in order to track the online behavior of users. Along with spywares, the advertisement companies can also infect your system with tracking cookies which can track every site that you have browsed and can fetch the vital personal information. Generally the spywares created by these companies are not as lethal as the ones created by the hackers, in case the companies do not use the information for anything else apart from marketing but these spywares also turn your machine into a data transmitter for these advertisement agencies, seriously affecting the performance of your home based system. Introduction: Imagine the previous times full of inconvenience and hassles when we had to stand in what appeared to be never ending queues, to execute any transaction at the bank be it some money transfer or even a minor enquiry. We had to spend hours for booking the railway tickets and for paying our utility bills. Then we jumped onto the era of internet where most of the needs of the day are resolved using internet itself. Few individuals now can be seen doing the transactions standing at the bank. But, as the wise people say “There are no free lunches”, there is a cost associated with this convenience as well. The sole identity that a person has during any online transfer is his password. In case the password to your bank account has been hacked by a smart hacker, after tracking the data from your computer system, he can transfer millions from your account into his account in just a few seconds. To your nightmare, it does not end here. He can sell the vital information, related to your company’s strategy and stored in your system, to the competitor and since the information has been leaked from your system, it will be only you who end up in a jail after losing all the money. All that has been said above is very much plausible and the softwares that are programmed by the hackers to perform all this are called Spywares. Spywares are programmed to obtain the data stored on our computer, and surreptitiously transfer them to the designated computer systems. This data can then be used for any purpose the hacker likes and after that he can sell it at a suitable cost in the grey market. The extent of Spywares can be estimated from the fact that according to the data reported by Earthlink in mid-20041 itself, computers they scanned averaged 26 instances of Spywares per computer. The next question is how do these softwares get into our systems at the first place? The answer to this is they get through mostly with the help of freewares2. Some of the freewares that are available on the internet contain these Spywares as a package. These freewares even have a notification that a spyware will be installed onto the host computer in the fine prints. But, most people sign the licensing agreement without having a proper look at it. Whenever a user installs any such freeware on his machine, the Spywares keeps on transferring the data which, as per claim in these agreements, is used for the marketing information sought by the company who sell you this freeware. These companies claim to generally track the user behavior with the help of this monitoring activity in which the kind of websites visited, the frequency of visits, number of clicks etc. are collated by the company. Apart from this, there is a second way as well in which the spyware can hit your machine. This is possible when the browser of your machine has a loophole that it does not seek permission from the user before installing any of the executables. In such case, the spyware may be installed without the user actually being aware of it. Different Kind of Spywares:- 1. Adware: Adwares are the kind of softwares, that when installed on the machine automatically pops up the advertisement of the marketing company. These are generally used by the companies in order to create recognition for their product in the market. 2. Internet Loggers: These are the one that the companies used to monitor the online behavior of the internet users. They track the behavior by recording online clicks and the kind of websites visited by a user. 3. Chat Loggers: These spyware make a record of all the chats and pass it on the requisite system. Just like chat loggers, email loggers are also available on the internet whose task is to provide a copy of the emails to be passed to the intended systems. 4. Key Stroke Loggers: - These are one of the most dangerous kinds of spywares. They record the key strokes pressed by the user at any point in time. Thus these spywares are capable of collecting any information that is bank account internet passwords, social security number, credit card number etc. 5. Man-in-the-Middle Proxies: - Dangerous software that redirects all Web Surfing activity, including secure connections, to the main-in-the middle proxy. These spywares also have the capability of extracting all the passwords and credit card data. Disadvantages of Spyware:- The most obvious disadvantage is that a spyware has the capability of sending vital data to the requisite system. Most of the users today develop their home based computer in a manner that they keep almost every vital piece of information onto their systems assuming it to be safe and sound, literally unaware of any spyware. Then they end up being a victim of this spywares which can fetch every single bit of information from their systems. Apart from this, the spyware has a capacity of transferring the completely home based work station into a porn server thereby inviting much of a traumatic condition for the end user. Moreover, spywares continuously keeps on sending the data using the host’s network and occupy a space in the primary memory. Therefore they have an effect of slowing down the system speed considerably by utilizing not only the bandwidth of the available network but also the primary memory and the CPU utilization for the execution of the software code. Difference between a spyware and a virus:- A major difference between a spyware and a virus is that a virus is installed with a primary motive of hurting the host computer whereas the primary motive of a spyware is to drive the data from the host computer onto the designated computer. Also, spyware, in most of the cases, is downloaded with the freeware in which user himself grants the authorization to the advertisement company or to the hacker to freely track the key logging or the internet logging activities where as a viruses in most of the cases is installed in background without seeking any approval from the user. Moreover, a virus generally multiplies itself in the course of time with automatically getting passed on to the different systems whereas there is no such feature seen until now for the spywares. Why can a Spyware be more dangerous than a Virus:- Spywares cannot be removed from the system with the help of antivirus. Antivirus are software codes to detect the presence of latest viruses, when there definitions are kept updated, but are not the agents for the removal of spywares. To add to this, there is no legal solution available for the cause of spywares, because you have authenticated the use of spywares as per the fine print document, in case you have agreed on the terms and conditions of such freewares. Even firewalls may not be effective in case the freeware is carrier of the spyware because they cannot differentiate between the code of the freeware and a spyware. How to defend against Spywares:- 1. Resort to the policy of there is no free lunches: - Wise people have always said that there are no free lunches. They say that anything that is available in the market for free may not be worth of even taking it. Therefore try not to install freewares onto your machine. In case you are too interested to install it, take a judicious decision by doing a proper market research before installing it. Most of the companies today resort to this policy of ‘There are no free lunches’ in which they do not allow any installation of freewares into their office network by giving proper control to users and administrators. According to my opinion, the policy of ‘There are no free lunches’ is the best for prevention of your system from the lethal act of spywares. 2. There are a few anti spywares available in the market whose functioning is more or less similar to the antivirus packages available in the market. They quarantine a list of spywares, which are stored in their database of anti-spywares, and guide the user to take appropriate step from thereafter. The top three anti-spywares3 available in the market are Spy Sweeper, CounterSpy and Spyware Doctor. 3. Do a proper check of your browser that it does not allow any programs to be installed without seeking your permission. Moreover, it is recommended that you block pop-ups from all the sites in order to reduce the chance of getting attacked by a spyware. In Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, this can be done by clicking on the check box ‘Block pop-ups’ in the Privacy Tab in ‘Internet Options’. A screenshot of the same has been attached below:- Parameters to judge an anti-spyware:- Following are the parameters on which the effectiveness of an anti-spyware can be adjudged:- a. Ease of setup: - It refers to the ease with which a spyware can be installed on the user’s machine. b. Detection Effectiveness: - The effectiveness of the anti-spyware in terms of detecting a spyware from the host computer. c. Removal Effectiveness: - The effectiveness of the anti-spyware in terms of removing the detected spyware from the host computer. d. System Performance: - The user should not suffer from a low system performance after the anti-spyware software has been installed. e. Support Documentation: - Whether enough documents for the installation as well as maintenance of the anti-spyware have been provided or not? References: Anti-Spyware Software Review. (2009) TopTenReviews. Available from: [Accessed 28 April 2009]. McDowell, Mindi and Lytle, Matt. (15 August 2007) United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), Recognizing and Avoiding Spyware. Available from: [Accessed 30 April 2009]. Miller. (23 January 2007) Your PC’s under siege- Viruses, Spyware, Malware Oh My! Tiger Direct News. Available from: [Accessed 28 April 2009]. Spyware. (October 2008) United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT). Available from: [Accessed 29 April 2009]. Spyware Protection. (June 2005). Tipping Point. Available from: [Accessed 28 April 2009]. Read More