Why You Should Be Worried About The Spyware On Your PC

Why You Should Be Worried About The Spyware On Your PC

Spyware has firmly established itself as one of today’s most serious PC threats.  Spyware is software that isn’t readily understood by the user. It may load itself on to a computer without the user’s knowledge, or it may masquerade as a program or utility with a seemingly useful function.
 

What Makes Spyware So Dangerous?

Spyware was initially crafted to load pop-up advertisements onto a computer, but it has quickly been adapted to perform a number of other nefarious functions, including monitoring the user’s online behavior, redirecting Web browsers to certain locations, installing additional malware onto the host computer, manipulating pay-per-click advertising revenue, changing configuration information on the host computer, capturing personal information like account names and passwords, credit card numbers, browsing habits and more. Spyware that is designed to capture personal information is also used to transmit that information to a third party. Information gleaned about a user’s browsing behavior often controls the type of pop-up advertisements that appear on the user’s computer. 

Spyware differs from computer viruses in a few significant ways. Unlike a virus, spyware doesn’t usually “self-replicate.” Your infected computer will not attempt to pass on spyware to other computers, or attach itself to outgoing email messages. Instead, spyware may be disguised as a helpful utility application, may invisibly accompany another application, may pose as shareware or a security application, or may load itself without any fanfare at all.

Symptoms Of Spyware Infection

The most common symptoms of a spyware infection include:

• increased pop-up advertising, including pornographic and other offensive ads
• increasingly slow computer performance
• increased hard disk activity
• increased Internet activity not requested or controlled by the user
• application and system crashes

Normally, a computer does not suffer from a single spyware infection. Once infected by spyware, the computer tends to accumulate additional spyware, viruses and malware until the computer’s function is seriously compromised.

Despite the fact that spyware has been around for more than ten years, it remains one of the major threats to security for PCs running the Windows operating system. Macintosh computers are also affected by spyware as well, but due to the way certain applications like Web browsers are integrated into the operating system on Windows PCs, spyware poses a much more serious concern.
 

What Should You Do About Spyware?

If you don’t already have a spyware blocker loaded on your computer, load one immediately! XoftSpy SE offers all of the features you want in a spyware blocker and can identify more than 40,000 different spyware programs.  In addition to blocking spyware, XoftSpy SE also blocks adware, Trojans and other malware that could be waiting to infect your computer. 

XoftSpy SE will protect your personal information and protect passwords and other sensitive data. Your computer’s performance will improve, and once you install XoftSpy SE, you can schedule regular checkups to make sure your computer remains free of potentially dangerous spyware for good!

Photo Credit: Ines Teijeiro

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