Spyware Blockers

If your philosophy on spyware is that it is a mere annoyance, or that it’s a nuisance but it isn’t particularly dangerous, you’re mistaken. Spyware is one of the primary tools that thieves use to steal your identity. In fact, it accounts for nearly half of the known cases of identity theft each year.

Currently, identity theft costs nearly $57 billion each year. While this doesn’t normally come out of the pockets of the victims of identity theft, the cost of this fraud is passed along to all consumers through higher interest rates on credit purchases and higher transaction fees.

Common Routes To Identity Theft

Eliminating the most common routes to identity theft (phishing and spyware) could reduce the cost of consumer fraud by nearly 100 percent. Other than being vigilant and savvy, there’s not much that can be done to stop phishing. Phishing is an attack that relies on “social engineering.” These attacks usually attempt to gain the trust of an individual, either through legitimate-looking email or other schemes that involve receiving email from a trusted source.

Spyware, on the other hand, is absolutely treatable. Like phishing, spyware attacks require the user to download the offending software. Unlike phishing, however, more sophisticated spyware can download itself if the user visits an infected Web site or clicks on a link that redirects the user to a malicious site. Free software can be infected with spyware as well, and altered copies of legitimate software programs can also deliver a spyware payload.

Anti-Spyware Protection Is Key

With spyware, you never know where the next attack will come from. Where one attack fails, another might succeed. The battle against spyware is continuous and exhausting. To protect your computer and your personal information, you need to load anti-spyware software on your computer. Like anti-virus software, anti-spyware/anti-malware software is updated regularly. As new infections are discovered, the malware definitions are updated to help keep your computer safe from the latest threats.

With up-to-date spyware protection loaded on your computer, you reduce the chance that you or someone in your household will become a victim of a spyware infection. You can protect your personal data, your account information, access codes and passwords. You can also be sure that as new threats arise, your anti-spyware software will be able to identify and disable them before they can do any real damage to your computer.

Still don’t think that anti-spyware software is necessary? Maybe this will change your mind. While consumers aren’t often held responsible for unauthorized charges on their credit cards, experts estimates that it costs the average consumer about $1,200 and 40 hours of time to clean up a credit report that has been damaged as the result of identity theft. How much is 40 hours of your time worth?

Photo Credit: Steve Woods

Auctiva.com, a popular Web site that distributes tools for eBay online auctions became infected with a Trojan last week. As visitors came to the sites, their PCs were infected with the Trojan. At one point, Google’s anti-malware detection services picked up the infection and began warning visitors that the site had been compromised.
According to Auctiva.com, the malware originated in China and was designed to take advantage of a known flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Some users were reporting multiple malware infections after having been hit with the initial Trojan. The site has since cleaned up and patched its servers, and suggests that users load anti-virus and anti-malware protection on their computers, and update their operating systems to include all of the latest security patches.

Users Ignore Warnings

Some users reported getting infected even after reading Google’s warnings about possible malware on the site. The episode provides an important lesson: even when infected sites are detected and warnings are issued, users may ignore all of the information they’re being given and risk a visit to the site anyway.
This is especially difficult to prevent when the site is one that users are familiar with. Users don’t recognize that even their favorite sites can be the subjects of a malware attack. Simply because the site didn’t pose a danger yesterday doesn’t mean that the site is still clean today.

Anti-Malware Protection You Can Trust

One way to ensure that your computer is protected is to load proven anti-spyware/anti-malware protection and keep it up to date. XoftSpy SE from SpywareBlockers.org can provide you with round-the-clock protection against spyware, malware, adware, Trojans, keyloggers and other threats that can compromise the safety of your private information and browsing habits, and can impair the performance of your computer.
XoftSpy SE offers real protection against literally hundreds of thousands of malware threats. Even when you visit an infected site or download infected software, XoftSpy SE can detect the malware and prevent it from harming your computer. Your protection is always up-to-date with XoftSpy SE, and you can be sure that your computer gets the protection it needs from thousands of threats and their numerous variants every time you start your computer.
XoftSpy SE from Spywareblockers.org is available for a low annual fee. You simply load the software on your computer and let XoftSpy SE do the rest. It will detect and remove malware, clean the registry and prevent new infections from occurring. If you want real protection, you need XoftSpy SE.
Photo Credit: Mark Anderson

If you have a computer that’s used by a number of family members, or your family includes teenagers or college-aged students, you may be at added risk for spyware infections from Kazaa, a popular file-sharing program. A recent study of the program caused Computer Associates to name Kazaa as the number one spyware threat on the Internet right now.

Slow Traffic Ahead

While many file-sharing users appreciate Kazaa’s finer qualities, the program also makes an extraordinary number of registry entries and slows computer performance significantly. Computer Associates calls Kazaa the greatest threat because of the number of copies that have been downloaded – more than 200 million to date.

The company says that Kazaa and other popular file-sharing programs are bundled with adware or spyware. These bundles create extra directories and registry entries, and consume computer resources in a way that significantly impacts the performance of the computer. In addition, shared files may deposit additional adware, spyware, or back-door kits on the computer over time. While CA singled out Kazaa for the number one distinction, the company does say that file-sharing programs, in general, pose an unacceptable security risk and should be removed from computers.

TopText by Ezula was the second biggest threat on CA’s list. Ezula/TopText bills itself as a “personal Internet reference and simplification tool” but most security watchdog groups bill it as spyware. Ezula claims not to collect, share or sell information but most experts agree that the program falls into the spyware category. Kazaa often loads Ezula/TopText – another reason to keep both programs off of your computers.

Spyware, adware and other malware have many routes into your computer. Most often, you enable this malicious software to get access to your computer inadvertently. Free software is plentiful on the Internet, and there are many valuable free programs available today. Among them, however, are malicious software, altered versions of known software and seemingly innocent software that poses a significant security threat.

Don’t leave your computer unprotected, and don’t leave it under-protected either. Before you download any free software, research it to see if it has the potential to bring unwanted adware or spyware along with it. Before you load software on your computer, make sure your anti-malware and anti-spyware software is up-to-date. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your computer is protected because it came with anti-virus software. (If you haven’t been downloading regular definitions and keeping your A/V products updated, you’re not safe!) If you’re looking for effective spyware protection, look no farther than XoftSpy SE from SpywareBlockers.org.

Photo Credit: Mike Fox

A new report issued by the Secure Computing Corporation shows some positives and negatives for 2008 and analyzed the formation of new computer security threats. While the company has seen a decrease in the volume of spam being reported and a decrease in the incidence of “zombie” attacks, it reports that spyware and associated malware pose a growing threat for home users.

Among the company’s findings are that Swizzor and related malware variants made up more than 30 percent of all new malware in the second quarter of 2008. In addition, the company found that Zbot spyware and malware variants continued to pose a significant threat to unprotected computers. Zbot is especially dangerous because it steals users’ sensitive information and establishes an unauthorized or backdoor connection to an infected computer. The unauthorized access allows the computer to be used for purposes other than what the owner intended.

Secure Computing says that the growth of “blended attacks” – those that use more than one malicious program or approach to take control of a computer – are on the rise. Consumers must be vigilant when it comes to providing adequate protection for their computers. This vigilance will not only protect the consumer’s computer, but will also slow the spread of these malicious software packages to other vulnerable computers.

Protecting Your Computer

To protect a computer, it is important to remember that many different computer services require protection. Protection that covers email and Web surfing is better than those that simply scan emails for possible threats or those that protect only against malicious Web sites.

Malware and spyware authors are clever and their approaches are becoming more sophisticated over time. Being wary of social engineering techniques – e-cards or email from friends, Web-based advertising, free downloadables, etc., will improve a user’s odds of avoiding malware and spyware. Protecting financial information is critical. Most malware authors do what they do for financial gain of some type.

What can you do to protect your computer? First, make sure that your operating system is patched regularly. Most Trojans and other malware take advantage of known flaws in the operating system to gain control of a computer. Second, download and use excellent spyware protection, like XoftSpy SE from Spywareblockers.org. Update your spyware software regularly and check your system carefully. Many people choose to load more than one anti-spyware package on their computers for added protection. Third, be aware that spyware-infected copies of legitimate software do exist. If you find that you can download expensive software for “free” there’s a good bet that you’re getting more than just the software package.

Photo Credit: Sebastian Duarte

According to one source, XoftSpy SE is one of more than 500 legitimate anti-spyware products on the market today. Despite the abundance of spyware and malware detection software, consumers are still unable to protect themselves from the most malicious threats. This failure isn’t because the spyware products aren’t working. Rather, most users fail to understand the threat spyware poses, and its increasingly dangerous intentions.

What’s In Your Wallet?

Credit card theft, bank theft and identity theft are becoming the primary goals of spyware producers. Adware was initially designed to pop up advertisements and generate revenue for the adware company. The model itself isn’t very valuable to businesses. After all, can you really expect to generate a lot of business by annoying your prospective customers to death?

The ease with which adware could be created and loaded onto computers drove software producers to take more bold steps. Spyware could target advertising to a user based on his or her browsing habits. That’s somewhat more useful than just a random blast of ads, but that approach opened the door to even more bold steps. If the software could monitor a user’s browsing habits, it could also monitor other online activities, too.

Certain spyware programs are designed to capture and relay information about a user. For example, spyware can capture keystrokes or screen information if the user visits a particular site. If the particular site happens to be a banking site, or a credit card site, a user’s identity and bank accounts could easily be compromised. Less sensitive information like screen names could be subjected to password attacks, and once a password is gained, the user’s account could be manipulated or even emptied.

Spyware has become progressively more dangerous over time. It’s gone from being annoying to being a primary vehicle for identity theft. While some banks and credit cards may offer protection against online theft, these measures are usually reactive. They may mitigate the damage that has been done by the identity theft, but they don’t do anything to cure the original infection.

Most spyware is too stealthy for users to notice. If you assume that your computer will begin reacting badly or behaving oddly when it is infected with spyware, you could be in for a real surprise. Most users don’t consider spyware a threat because they don’t know when, how or how long their computer has been infected. They have no idea what kind of personal information has been captured and/or forwarded to another party and because their computer is behaving normally, they assume they’re not infected.

Don’t take chances with your computer. Download XoftSpy SE from Spywareblockers.org today.

Photo Credit: Steve Woods