“Know your enemy, if you want to conquer him”. This is a well known phrase that you should be aware to the spyware threats. Spyware can cause innumerable problems, like quietly spying upon your surfing habits, pass on your credit card information to the bad elements or simply be a nuisance to your computer operation. In all cases, it pays to know your enemy and hence you should have enough prior knowledge of them to combat them. Here is a list of the top ten spyware threats as sourced from Face Time Security Labs.
The first among the many enemies is Gator. Gator is used to store the password of a site for retrieving it while visiting that particular site. You end up paying for this service by enduring frustrating pop-ups. There have been some efforts by Claria, who created Gator, to alter it for a more user friendly version but the problem hasn’t been solved as yet.
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.
Huntbar is a self-obssesed little imp. Everytime you search in Google or any other search engine, Huntbar directs you to its own page. A self-pointing toolbar is set up on your browser by this rogue program. It even changes the home page to its own website.
Cydoor uses peer to peer (P2P) setup to spy on your browser history and harass you with nonstop advertisement popups. So if you exchange information between two computers often, this pesky spyware might just trip you up.
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.
8. New.Net : Non-Standard top level domains are sold by the company called New.Net. As this is a highly annoying software, it should be removed instantaneously.
IEplugin is harmful to your privacy to say the least. It installs a tool bar onto the browser and tracks all the activities on the internet.
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.
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