Spy vs. PC

by James Osborne, II, IT Manager, CNA, MCP, MCSA

Most of us have personally experienced the invasion of advertising into almost every area of our lives. It has now crept onto our personal computers in the form of Adware and Spyware taking up residence on our machines, taking over web pages, popping up ads and harvesting personal information. Dell recently reported that the number one reason for calls to the technical support hotline is related to Adware or Spyware. What exactly are Adware and Spyware?

Adware is a generic term describing advertising supported software. It enables software authors to profit from their product without actually charging the end user. Banner ads or other types of advertisements are embedded or bundled with the software product, and the author receives either a flat fee, or a percentage of the revenue from the ads. Adware is similar to traditional print advertising, in that the advertiser pays for a “spot” in front of a person’s eyes. Adware can be an effective way for small software houses to fund the development of useful software without competing directly with the “big boys” in the marketplace.

Unfortunately, while a good concept, there are shortcomings. Many people find these advertisements annoying. The advertisements will typically either be displayed in the software or appear on screen as pop-up web pages. Adware will often use the computer’s internet connection to update its ads, which uses bandwidth. Worst of all, many Adware applications install separate, more insidious advertising and tracking components: Spyware.

Spyware is software created for the purpose of collecting demographic and usage information from a personal computer. While Spyware is usually bundled with another product, it’s becoming more common for it to ‘sneak’ onto a computer.

Spyware can differ drastically from Adware. Adware is by definition a passive system; the same banner ad pops up for everyone, similar to traditional advertising. When the ads are targeted to a specific user, or when data is sent back to the originator of the software, a more active system is involved, and that is defined as Spyware.

Put simply, Spyware is a marketer’s dream. Whereas traditional advertising takes a shotgun approach – get the message in front of as many people as possible in the hopes that some of them will buy into it – Spyware targets the advertising in a very specific manner. An advertisement for a new pizza place appears only to people who have recently placed online orders with one of the existing pizza chains. A window to Vendor A will pop up when a person is browsing a web page that contains a reference to Vendor B.

Spyware has a darker side. Spyware is an independent program on the system, and as such can be very powerful. Spyware can change the default home page, track web browsing habits, monitor keystrokes, or even collect username, password and other account information.

Spyware will periodically ‘phone home’ to report this information back to the program author, who will likely use it to generate more targeted banner ads, pop up ads, spam e-mail, etc.

Spyware programs can be quite difficult to remove, and will often continue to function even after the original associated application has been uninstalled. They run continuously, consuming system resources, slowing the PC down, and nibbling away at internet connection speeds

Spyware is practically everywhere. Fully 20% of personal computers tested at PCPitstop have one or more spyware programs active in memory. Security firm McAfee found more than 14 million instances in March of 2004, a 700% increase in just seven months. And Spyware has the potential to be quite devastating, as already noted, by consuming valuable system resources, and slowing down the PC. As updates and/or targeted ads are downloaded, or reports are sent “home,” internet bandwidth is consumed, again resulting in decreased speed. Spam will likely increase, as the Spyware provides access to both e-mail addresses and demographic data.

There are serious privacy concerns, as these applications can access almost anything on a PC, from e-mail and web browsing history to passwords, credit card numbers, bank account information, etc.

The end user has no control over what data is monitored or reported. The end user is at increased risk, as Spyware is an open door on their system; it could contain viruses, Trojan Horses or other applications to allow unfettered access to the PC.

Unfortunately, in most cases, Spyware is legal. When installing the original associated application, a user will see a vague reference to the possibility of advertising partners sending updates. In order to install the desired application, he or she must agree to accept its associated applications, and in doing so, the user accepts the Spyware software. It becomes illegal only when the software is installed completely without user consent, or the license agreement is violated.

The solution is to get Spyware off of affected systems, and to keep it off. There are several companies that have developed anti-spyware tools, one of the more popular being Ad-Aware. Offered by Lavasoft, Ad-Aware is available as a “free for personal use” tool that will remove most Spyware and Adware. A business version is available for a nominal fee. Spybot Search and Destroy is another effective tool. Fortunately, most anti-virus vendors are beginning to bundle Spyware detection with their anti-virus packages.

Email James at James_Osborne@mnccpa.com.