What Exactly is Spyware?

We’ve written a lot here about how to prevent or get rid of spyware, but it hadn’t dawned on us that some of you might appreciate a basic description of just what spyware is until one reader emailed us with that very question, so here it is, the ugly truth, in brief detail:

Spyware!

Basically, spyware is typically a small software program (or script) written with the single purpose of spying on your computer files and/or keyboard strokes in order to find and steal personal information, such as credit card numbers, login usernames and passwords, trade or business secrets, or any other sensitive information the spyware creator may want to get their hands on.

Most often, spyware gets delivered to you as a parasite attached to some other software or files, such as images, without your knowledge.

It can be hard to determine if a file or program you’ve downloaded from the Internet has spyware attached to it, and harder still to tell if you’ve been infected with spyware. That, mixed with how serious the security risk is to PC’s and workstations, is the main reason we talk about spyware so often here.

And while there is certain anti-spyware software which we endorse here, we really don’t care what software you use as much as we care about urging everyone to use some form of prevention and protection software in addition to a strong Firewall and Anti-Virus.

Image Source: sxc.hu user arinas74

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