News: Spyware Web Sites Quadruple in Past Year

[Andre Da Costa [Extended64]]

The number of Web sites distributing malicious software has quadrupled in
the last year to more than 300,000, as the spyware problem continues to
fester on the Internet, according to an upcoming report from Webroot , an
antispyware software company.

Webroot Software Inc.'s State of Spyware Report for the second quarter of
2005, claims that 80 percent of enterprise computers are infected with some
kind of adware or spyware. Rates of infections of malicious programs such as
Trojan horse and keylogging software did not decrease between the first and
second quarter, despite more awareness of the danger of spyware.
The report comes as the online criminal groups that are responsible for
spyware switch from pay-per-click advertising to identity theft as a way to
profit from their activities, said Richard Stiennon, vice president of
threat research at Webroot.

The State of Spyware Report presents the results of spyware scans of almost
60,000 systems at 20,000 companies, Webroot said.
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Andre
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
FAQ for MS AntiSpy http://www.geocities.com/marfer_mvp/FAQ_MSantispy.htm

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Eric Howes has added 7 new entries to his list of rogue antispyware
applications this month. These critters always seem to be high in the
google sponsored ads in my searches for spyware citations, too.

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

 

[Guest]

What is spyware? Where and who does spyware come from?

What are definitions?

 

[Bill Sanderson]

http://www.microsoft.com/issues/essays/2005/06-29spyware.asp

 

[Bill Sanderson]

http://www.antispywarecoalition.org/index.htm

The comment period for this organizations definitions paper is over, with a
revision due out in the fall. However, it has a set of definitions:

http://www.antispywarecoalition.org/definitions.pdf


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