Beware Of Spyware Threats ? The Top Ten

No net-savvy user can underestimate the danger posed by Spyware. These malicious programs cause losses worth millions of dollars to corporates and individuals alike and huge amounts of money are spent in fighting these fast breeding threats. Spyware programs can lurk in your data, stealing crucial information like credit card numbers and personal browsing history. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. So here’s a list of the most dangerous spyware doing the rounds, brought to you through FaceTime Security Labs.

Gator, one of the earliest spywares, memorizes the password of a site so that it can be popped up for gaining entry the next time you visit that website. Irritating popups keep opening up when you try to access your site due to Gator’s activity. The creator of this program, Claria, has attempted to smoothen out this retrieval software, but the popup nuisance persists.

CoolWebSearch is second on the list and it has earned the reputation of being the most irksome program that has many variants. It directs the user to CoolWebSearch.com or Datanotary.com by manipulating the browser. It?s extremely tricky to uninstall and users must never try it manually.

180SearchAssistant is another one of those pranksters that is bent on offering you pop ups of sites resembling your search keyword. Emoticons and wallpaper come as addition gift wraps along with this software. Newer version, however, offer some respite with their add/remove program and uninstall features.

4. Huntbar ? Another piece of annoying software, Hunthar, manages to install a toolbar in both your internet explorer and windows explorer windows. It will also change your home page and settings for search to redirect you to their own search engine. This can be highly annoying and also consume an exorbitant memory space of over 15%.

Cydoor is the next in line among its illustrious brothers and sisters. The main source of this program is the peer to peer (P2P) software. Much like the others mentioned above, it frustrates the users no end by incessant advertisement pop ups and also tracks the browser history.

ISTbar sticks to your system through install ActiveX and javascript. It?s as easy as visiting a site and you have a brand new program called ISTbar. It?s extremely dangerous as it siphons off the information to my-internet.info and Blazefind.com.

Various features of WhenU-DesktopBar includes ad pop ups, tracking of browsing history and an ability to run codes from a far off server using only update settings. Searches may end up in special offers and coupons being flashed on the monitor.

New.net masquerades as a seller of non-standard top domain names which can cause a lot of grief. This program should be promptly cleaned out from your system.

9. IEPlugin ? Another invasive software that installs a toolbar in the internet explorer, as its name implies. After installation, it will track you web site usage, create unwanted items like names, addresses etc and spy on local files that are browsed. You are strongly advised to remove this spyware.

10. BargainBuddy ? This software is distributed by BullzEye Network and you can find it everywhere. What it does it to set up a Browser Helper Object (BHO) with the help of which it will monitor the usage of your computer. Based on this information, it will push advertisements on your monitor, much to your annoyance.

Tags: Adware & Spyware Security, anti spyware, Computers, internet, software, spyware removal

This entry was posted on August 24, 2009 at August 24, 2009 and is filed under Adware & Spyware Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.