Chapter 4: SPYWARE: HERE TO STAY

People are changing their web habits these days. But there was a time not long ago when an Internet user had free access to any and every website he or she wanted to. The access is still there but what has changed is the vulnerability of the user’s computer system.  The reason is the advent of spyware. In fact, we have not ever a crystal idea about all the prevailing functions of the spyware applications and worse still the total number and the prospective variants that exist freely in the World Wide Web waiting to harm your computer system.

A recent survey performed by the American Life Project along with Pew Internet reveals a statistic that is, in the most diminutive form, startling. It has found that 48% of the web users have discontinued logging into specific Web sites, 28% of the users have already ceased any kind downloading, whether it is film files, games, applications or music, from shared network systems. 18% of all the users have already even dumped the Internet Explorer to avoid spyware applications. And 91% of users have completely changed their individual web habits.

It should be remembered that about half a decade earlier the total amount of bug threats to computer systems were up to a single or couple per day per system. These were also high level or moderate level threats from computer viruses. Now a day it has leaped to a huge number and what is more they are generally applications of low resolution. Worms like Sasser are a rarity these days. This makes the job harder for anti-bug programs. It seems the threats are never-ending and continuous. 

Another aspect must be worth mentioning, in fact it is one of the most important features of this modern day menace called spyware and that is its financial side.

Computer viruses are generally targeted towards the operating system keeping in mind the motive to harm the computer. These are more of prank makers with little or no financial benefits. But when we take spyware into contention the scenario is quite different. There is a lot to offer in this business of spyware. Corporate spying games are on an all time high and any worthy information can bring home a king’s ransom to a spyware programmer. Apart from corporate finance there are also opportunities in the perimeter of global and cyber marketing.  Though most of the time the marketing is absorbed in a functionality we often refer as a scam but nevertheless it brings home the bacon and that’s what counts.

So, as a result, when there is money involved, some people would go to any extent to get them, develop any number of applications to crack any and every individual privacy documentation like personal identity, password, individual details, bank account numbers and any and everything for which someone somewhere is over willing to pay for.  And this extent is being shown regularly by various new, more intelligent and indigenous spyware applications.

We, the users are trying hard and so the software companies are trying to solve the problem of this new age menace but the problem is deep cored and we on the other hand are basically in the dark about the actual extent of this threat. There should be a common metric to start with, at least. Then there are competitions within the anti spyware manufacturing companies. To compete and stay afloat in the market they yield a new product every other day that is but a little variant of its last version. That is time and scope enough for the spyware designers to crack within.