What is Spyware?

Adware

What is it?

Adware is a type of malware that is designed primarily to serve targeted advertising to you while you are using your computer. Unlike some other forms of malware, Adware is perfectly legal and is actually very big business.

What does it do?

After being installed on to your PC, Adware applications start to gather information about the types of websites that you visit, how often you visit them and how long you spend on each site. Sometimes, they also gather information about the types of products or services that you buy online. This information is periodically 'sent back to base' using your internet connection, and the companies who created the Adware use the information to serve you advertisements. The ads usually appear in the form of pop-up windows whilst you are surfing the internet or banner advertisements on certain websites. Occasionally, they may also appear as stand-alone windows (not Internet Explorer pop-up windows) or as banner advertisements in software applications themselves.

Who uses them?

Loads and loads of companies! The internet (or more specifically the World Wide Web) is an ideal medium for advertising simply because of it's popularity and the ease with which advertisements can be shown directly to the intended target. Also, it's relatively cheap; pop-up ads effictively cost nothing to show meaning that Internet marketing companies can offer their services to clients at a very attractive price, and still make a healthy profit.

There are a number of companies that provide the actual Adware software and serve the advertisements, but probably the most well known one is Gator, a US based company that amongst other things produce a piece of software called 'GAIN'. GAIN is a classic example of an Adware application, it even tells you what it does when it asks you to install it!

What's the risk to me and my PC?

Since Adware is effectively used to make money, most of the adware operators are very careful not to acquire any sensitive information about you such as your credit card or bank details, usernames and passwords or PIN numbers since this could constitute a breach of several privacy laws. Instead, they mainly log less sensitive information about you as described above. In terms of your privacy and security then, Adware poses a moderate threat.

The big problem with Adware, however, is the impact that it can have on your computers' performance. Adware programs typically run all of the time that your computer is switched on, and regularly use your internet connection both for communicating with the parent company's servers and for downloading the adverts to your PC. This means that they are always using your computers resources which leaves less resources for all of your other programs, resulting in a slower PC.

What's worse, once you have one instance of Adware on your PC, it can actually encourage more Adware. If you end up with lots and lots of Adware all running on your PC at the same time, it can slow your computer down to the point that it becomes practically unusable, and can even cause it to stop working altogether.

Another negative effect is that some adware is more aggressive than others and can actually modify or disable certain functions to ensure that you don't close it down or unistall it.

 

How do I prevent / get rid of it?

Most Adware requires YOU to consciously install it on to your PC! Yes, that's right, if you've got Adware then the chances are that you actually allowed it on to your PC yourself. Don't worry though, Adware providers are very clever and often trick people into installing their Adware by combining it with other, often very usefull, free software. There's two main ways that Adware gets delivered to the end user: Bundled with free software or via web page 'install on demand' boxes. Examples of free software that contains spyware are:

- Kazaa (File sharing application)
- DivX Free edition (DVD and DivX movie player)
- Many free Windows Screensavers

Typically, any free program that is described as 'Advertising supported' will contain at least one item of Adware.

Internet Explorer Install on demand boxes are those grey windows that sometimes appear when you visit certain web sites. They often say things like 'Do you wish to install so and so from such and such corporation?' with buttons for you to either accept or decline. The golden rule here is to ALWAYS decline unless you know 100% that what you are going to install is safe. Basically, the only things that you should accept are:

- Macromedia Flash Player (needed to view flash animations and flash based web sites)
- Macromedia Shockwave (needed to play some interactive games and animations)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (needed to view .PDF files)
- Sun or Microsoft Java Runtime (needed to view java applets, java applets are often used to improve web site functionality)

When surfing the web, beware of anything that says something similar to the following:

- 'You must click YES to view the contents of this page!' (Nearly always installs malware of some kind if you do click yes!)

- 'Your computer is running more slowly than usual! Click here to speed it up' (Downloads Adware that usually slows your PC down even more!)

- 'Your computers clock is wrong! Click here to keep it accurate!' (Installs a program to syncronise your clock with that of a webserver, which is probably also wrong! And, of course, it installs Adware as well...)

- 'Click here to get automatic weather updates on your desktop!' (Quite useful I suppose, shame about the Adware that you also get with it!)

- 'Get 1000 free smilies for your email and instant messages!' (not to mention the 1000 bits of free Adware you get as well!)

As for getting rid of Adware, the best way is to use an Adware removal program. Adaware is quite effective, and is available for free from here. Believe it or not, you have to be wary of some Adware removal programs since they sometimes contain adware themselves!

 

 

 

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