Spyware is generally accepted to be any piece of computer software that monitors, records, or transmits to another party information about the web surfing habits of a computer user without that user's informed consent to do so. Some types of spyware go farther to actually hijack browser settings in a way that legitimate web site requests are forwarded to a fraudulent web site. Spyware is often lumped in the same category as a computer virus can sometimes be distributed as a part of a seemingly legitimate software download.
What Does Spyware Do To A Computer?
There are many varying degrees of severity when it comes to how invasive a piece of spyware can be. The most benign spyware programs come in the form of tracking cookies that can track the web sites that a user visits and occasionally transmit that data back to a central database. These tracking cookies are the easiest types of spyware to detect and also the easiest to remedy using an anti-spyware program or by simply deleting the cookies from the temporary Internet files folder.
The most serious forms of spyware come in the form of browser hijacking programs or keylogging programs that record every keystroke that a user makes on their keyboard. With a keylogger every key pressed, including bank passwords, email messages, and everything else the user types is either stored locally or transmitted back to the spyware's creator.
How To Prevent A Spyware Infection
Preventing spyware infections is quite often a matter of installing and keeping up to date a spyware detection program as well as practicing safe web surfing habits . Many commercial antivirus programs now come with spyware detection capabilities and do a very good job as long as the user allows the program to check for regular updates to its virus and spyware definition files. Having such a program installed will go a long way toward ensuring that the computer does not get infected with spyware and other types of malware programs.
