State of Spyware

According to a recent report on the State of Spyware things are pretty bad and if anything getting worse.

The report by Webroot Software details the analysis of huge amounts of data gathered as part of their anti-spyware development.

On the Up

Spyware infection rates are at their highest levels since 2004 with no less than 89% of all consumer PCs infected. There were, on average, a staggering 30 items of spyware on each PC. This is partially because there are lots of new inexperienced users with access to broadband and partially because of the increasing ingenuity of spyware authors.

The Curse of Zlob

The percentage of trojan infected consumer PCs is now above 31% with the most prevalent trojan being Zlob . Zlob is actually a trojan downloader which downloads more malware once it is installed.

Rogue anti-spyware

If this wasn't bad enough, there's more. Rogue anti-spyware appears to be a professional product with a professional looking website and genuine looking search engine advertisements. However instead of removing spyware it does the opposite and another compromised machine joins the ranks. A very good resource is the Rogue anti-spyware list at Spyware Warrior it lists the good as well as the bad. I would always recommend that you take a look there before even thinking of downloading any anti-spyware solution. It is a long list, currently 329 items, but well worth the effort. One thing to note is that there are rogue anti-spyware applications with the same or very similar names to legitimate products.

Something for Nothing

A lot of spyware infections are caused by users' desire for free stuff. Zlob masquerades as a free media codec for Windows Media Player which you just ‘have to have' to view some dodgy free video. When you download the 'codec' your troubles have only just begun.

Avoidable Pain

The way that most PCs are setup makes things much worse that they need be. When a new Windows XP machine is setup all users are created as Administrative users. What this means is that an Administrative user can change any aspect of the PC. But also any application that is started by an Administartive user can change anything as well. Now most of the time this doesn't matter too much but if it is spyware or a virus it can take complete control of the PC and that is very bad.

Mostly it is possible to run as a Limited user nearly all of the time but it can be problematic with some applications especially some games. It is a really good idea if you have a machine that you share with children to make them Limited users. It increases the chance that your machine won't be infected.

Windows Vista is supposed to be much more secure but there are millions of Windows XP machines in use as well as a dwindling collection of earlier versions.

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