Chances are you have seen at least one film with hackers.
These films tend to glamorise hacking but although the
essence of these events (i.e. people hacking in and stealing
information) is true, the way it is done in reality is very
different.
Spyware is a fairly common type of software. A spyware is a
program which collects data from your computer and sends it
to some other location, without your prior authorization and
without asking for confirmation. Spyware is often concealed
behind otherwise useful software, like peer-to-peer software
or browser add-ons. In other cases, spyware comes as a
"bonus", bundled with some other program, claiming that it
improves your experience.
This is why spyware is rather difficult to detect. To the
outside world, spyware looks just like any other program. In
fact, there are a lot of programs which send out perfectly
legitimate data over the Internet. Even your web browser
does. As a consequence, spyware cleaning software, such as
XoftSpySE, typically work by using a large database of
programs which are known to be harmful. Cont...
Spyware is not just about stealing your personal data,
such as credit card numbers or passwords. Although the
common knowledge is that passwords and other such sensitive
information are the most important target of spyware, these
make up only part of the data that is, in fact, stolen. So
what else would get stolen?
The answer is: well, just about anything that could be of
use. The websites you visit, for instance, which give hints
about your interests and, thus, hints about what ads you
would be more likely to read. What programs you use and how
often you do, what you search for on the Internet and so on.
These can be useful for various purposes, like marketing
studies.
You may say, and rightly so, that in some cases there's no
harm done, and you are usually right: the kind of
information that spyware sends out is not always harmful to
you in any way, and it is often the kind of information that
you would reveal if you were simply asked. However, this
doesn't mean that any spyware program is like this
especially in view of the current climate of 'Identity
Theft', which is why you usually want to keep your computer
spyware-free.
Furthermore, you have to ask yourself this question: would
you give away some information regardless of how it would be
used? I would certainly reveal some information about myself
to a student studying Economics, but I doubt I would do the
same thing for someone who just wants to spam my mailbox.
Spyware is a great way to skip these “ethical” questions: if
you don't know information is stolen from you, you cannot
ask any question.
The bottom line of this is that there is really no
“legitimate” spyware. Granted, some companies do collect
usage statistics from you, but this is done by adhering to a
very strict set of guidelines: you are always asked for
confirmation before sending information, the information is
completely anonymous and a very strict set of
privacy-related rules are adhered to. There is no real
justification in obtaining data about anything you do
without asking you first.
You can use any anti-spyware program to keep your computer
spyware-free, but chances are you want a high-quality
program, such as XoftSpySE for example. Using a good
anti-spyware program ensures the data you store on your
computer is safe, regardless of what kind of data it is.
