Harmful effects of Spyware

Spyware is a term that refers to unwanted software or malware that runs on the computer without the user’s knowledge and in the process assimilates little bits of information besides secretly monitoring the user’s computing habits. Spywares are designed to cater to a wide array of uses including keeping track of the user’s internet surfing habits, interfering with the web browser activity and executing unwanted programs or software. Apart from this a spyware can read information from cookies, install other spywares, change the browser and homepage settings and relay the information to its host site. Some examples of spyware groups are mywebspace, movieland, zlobtrojan or even keyloggers installed by the owner of a shared corporate to supervise other users secretly.

Spyware is recorded to have been used first on 16^th October, 1995 and according to recent estimates around 80% of personal computers are infected with some form of spyware. There are sections in the Windows registry whose key values can be modified such that the software application can be easily executed as soon as the system boots. This coupled with the naiveté of users is exploited by spyware thus carrying out its rapid spread.

A spyware can negatively affect the performance of a computer in ways more than one. Even if we overlook the moral issues of moral ethics and privacy we must note that a spyware makes use of the computer’s memory resources and also steals a certain bandwidth of the internet while it communicates with its home base. As a result applications running in the background are slowed down to a great extent leading to system instability and system crashes.

A spyware does not self-replicate like a virus or worm. Instead it manipulates the user’s inexperience and lack of appropriate knowledge. They often come bundled with other software when downloaded from the internet and gets installed along with other programs even without the user being aware of it.

Although spywares cannot be identified without the use of Anti-spyware or spyware –doctors its presence can be detected by frequent unwanted system behaviour and degradation of performance. Symptoms can range from application freezing to boot failure, disabling of software firewall and antivirus or repeated nagging from pop-up advertisements.

Many programmers and some commercial firms have released products dedicated to remove or block spyware. Users can make use of such software for catering to their needs. With the advent of cyber-laws and increasing vigilance in these areas a solution to this pestering problem may not be too far.