Beware! Someone's Watching Your Computer.
By Robie Pace

The symptoms are almost always the same. First you notice that your pc seems to be running slower. It now takes longer for you to check your email. Your internet searches take longer to load in your browser. The hard drive lights on the front of your computer blink all the time, even when you are not doing anything on your computer. Your home page unexplainably changed when you open up your browser and you have pop up web pages that show absolutely vulgar things.

The diagnosis is always the same too. Your computer has been infested with spyware and adware! The proliferation of these types of programs has grown to an epidemic proportion. And as far as I can tell, are causing more damage daily to home and business computers than viruses. Since this is such a new epidemic there are not a lot of hard numbers pertaining to the amount of money spyware and adware is costing businesses. If the amount of time I see my customers spend fighting this problem is an indicator, the dollars have to be very large.

In October 2004, National Cyber Security Alliance and AOL released a survey of computer users. One area of the survey pertained to spyware. It was discovered that 80% of all surveyed had computers infected with spyware/adware and the average number of infections was 93 per machine.

So what do the companies that put out spyware and adware hope to gain by infecting your computer with their software? If you visit one of their websites you will see innocent sounding wording stating that they are simply providing a service to you by helping to direct you to beneficial goods and services based upon your web browsing and pc usage. They will also go on to state that if you have their software loaded on your pc that YOU must have downloaded the program on purpose and understood what they were offering. However, I have yet to find a single person or company that has ever agreed to download and install this type of software. To further convince you that their intentions are less than honorable, try following their instructions to remove their software. I’ll assure you that they don’t work. Or if they do remove the program, as soon as you reboot your pc, the program will reinstall itself.

The real reason that spyware and adware programs exist is to server two purposes. First, these companies want to observe and record what you are doing on the internet and on your pc. Then they want to sell this information to marketing firms. Second, they want to redirect your web browser to other websites that pay them for doing so. Hence the reason for the popup adds and changes to your default home webpage. As far as I am concerned there are two words that describe this type of business practice: malicious and deceptive. Theft also comes to mind.

God’s Word warns us to be on guard for this type of deception. Prov 26:24-28 (HCSB) 24 A hateful person disguises himself with his speech and harbors deceit within. 25 When he speaks graciously, don’t believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart. 26 Though his hatred is concealed by deception, his evil will be revealed in the assembly. 27 The one who digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever rolls a stone—it will come back on him. 28 A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth causes ruin.

Unfortunately, there is not a silver bullet program that can remove all spyware and adware from your computer. I have found that it requires more than one program to remove most of the known infections of the day. Fortunately, there are two software programs that I have used for the last couple of years that are highly successful at removing even the most pesky spyware programs. They each have free download versions available on the internet.

The first is Spybot - Search & Destroy, www.safer-networking.org. The second is Ad-Aware SE Personal edition, www.lavasoft.de. Many of my customers have added these programs to their own software arsenal and use them on a regular basis. I highly recommend you download and install each program. Once you install the programs you will need to take the option to get their latest definition updates. Both companies are constantly updating their lists of new deceptions and infections used by the spying companies. The next thing to do is to run the scan for infections. Be sure to close all of your programs that might be running on your pc before you start the scan. This will help to insure a complete and uninterrupted scan. Depending upon the speed of your pc and size of hard drive, this can take several minutes. Also, don’t be surprised if each program finds more than 100 infections on your computer. You can run these programs in any order you choose, however, I have found things cleanup better if I run Spybot first and then run Ad-Aware SE second.

Spybot has an option that allows you to immunize your pc against spyware and block bad downloads and addresses in Internet Explorer. I have discovered this is very helpful to combat future infections after I have successfully cleaned things up. I think you will be very surprised how often Spybot’s warning box will popup as you browse the internet. This obviously indicates how many times spyware companies try to infect your computer without your consent.

If you are wondering why Microsoft hasn’t come out with a remedy to this problem yet, then wonder no longer. Recently I found that Microsoft has introduced its own spyware removal software called Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta1, www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/default.mspx. The Beta1 means that it is still being tested and evaluated by Microsoft. They allow you to download, install and use the new program at no charge right now. Since it is so new and I do not have much experience with this option, I cannot fully endorse it yet. However, if your pc is running Windows 2000, 2003 or XP, you may want to download this program and give it a try. I feel certain that Microsoft will eventually offer this as a standard part of their Windows security.

Finally, there a many good websites dedicated to protecting your businesses from this growing problem. National Cyber Security Alliance, www.staysafeonline.info is a good start. Another is www.getnetwise.org. Both sites offer current articles about spyware and adware. They also have links to other sources of cyber crime help. I encourage you to take action today and be prepared for a long fight. The battle on this field has just begun.