Using Google as a research aide for her thesis on money laundering was a common occurrence of one individual law school student. While writing her paper, the student found this to be a very important tool. Within months, the law school student began to experience a fluke as her trusty search engines began directing her towards completely unrelated websites that had nothing to do with money laundering.

Her hopes of it being an easy to repair problem with the internet or the search engine were dashed as the glitch refused to go away, and she was forced to concede that she had likely been bugged. Despite being annoying, when the bugging comes from a human, it can be gotten rid of. Adware and spyware, the computer bugs that infected the law school student’s computer, are not as easy to get rid of as human bugs. The law school student was definitely not an advanced student of technology, as she typically only used her computer for school related purposes of research and writing.

Many computer problems that give people like the student in the above scenario difficulty are caused by spyware and adware. In 2000, the word ’spyware,’ which had been around since 1995, became a fixture in most people’s computer dialogue. This refers to any software program or script which allows admission to the computer owner’s personal information.

This can be done through studying keystrokes, logging web browsing activities, and perhaps most worrying of all, the contents stored on a user’s hard drive. Although James Bond would be proud of the methods, these types of home infiltration via spyware happen every day in the real world. Calling people affected by these attacks victims is accurate, as no one wishes to have their online activities monitored. Spyware may help track criminals and their activities, but this type of program is used far more often for such vile activities as tracking credit card information from unsuspecting victims. Because of the hostile nature of these potential infiltrations, every computer should have an updated anti-spyware program.

In attempting to protect yourself, you should block not only spyware, but adware and malware, which are similar programs, as well. Spyware and adware blocker programs can be obtained online. These programs both remove and disable existing bugs and help prevent the future installation of similar malicious software.

In Closing

Thankfully, spyware, adware and malware do not self replicate the way that viruses and worms do, but they can cause similar malfunction in the day to day usage of computer activities. Slowing the computer down to a crawl is one of the nastier side effects of these malicious programs. Unfortunately for many computer owners, spyware programs can and do hide on their systems, causing havoc while being undetectable as the root of the problem. Knowing the immense damage these types of program can do, having a blocker to prevent them from setting up home on your system should be common sense.

Tags: Computers

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