Any company that has been the victim of a computer virus attack will understand just how big a problem it is. It costs time and money in terms of the IT resources that are required to clean up the ensuing mess, and dents productivity while systems are down. In some cases, corporate reputations can be hurt if they have inadvertently passed the virus on to key customers or business partners.

But financial gain is not usually what motivates virus writers. Rather, the prime motivation appears to be generally notoriety among their peers. However, that is not the case with the latest security menace receiving a lot of headline space - malicious programs that are generally banded together under the heading of spyware.

Spyware is the term used for any technology that is used to gather information about a person or a company that is then generally sold on to a third party for financial gain. It includes such technologies as keyloggers for gaining user names, passwords or account information, as well as a wide variety of other hacker tools. But, in order to qualify as spyware, the technology must be installed on a computer system without the user's knowledge - if a person has allowed some form of tracking software to be placed on their computer, that technology cannot be defined as spyware.

Spyware is also more dangerous that viruses as there are multiple ways in which it can be installed on a network, including being downloaded from a web site or through viruses, worms or e-mail attachments. Because of this, a user does not actually have to take any action that would be counter to good security advice, such as not opening an attachment sent from an unknown or untrusted source - especially since the e-mail address of the sender could be spoofed.

Technology vendors have been looking at the problem of spyware for some time, with some anti-spyware having been available for two to three years. In response to customer demand, several of the larger technology vendors have recently unveiled anti-spyware programs, many of which they have acquired from other vendors. These include well known companies such as McAfee and Symantec, but even security laggards Microsoft has recently acquired anti-spyware capabilities.

But there are still two distinct opinions observable in the marketplace; anti-virus vendors believe that their capabilities and experience in dealing with viruses make them ideally placed to offer anti-spyware technology, whereas the specialists believe that the problem is much more far reaching than that of viruses. Since many of the offerings are so new, the jury is still out on which side will win. But potential consumers should adhere to the old adage 'buyer beware' - look for company stability and customer references. Reports have been appearing of technology touted as anti-spyware, but which is actually spyware itself. This is not a problem we have heard the last of.

Source: http://www.it-director.com/article.php?id=12629