We hear it talked about on the news. There’s ads for it all over the Internet, and thousands of companies are making products to prevent it. But what is spyware, really? More importantly, what is it about spyware that makes it such a risk to your computer?
Spyware is defined by the Microsoft website as “a general term used to describe software that performs certain behaviors such as advertising, collecting personal information, or changing the configuration of your computer, generally without appropriately obtaining your consent first.” This is a very polite way of saying that spyware is a bloodsucking parasite that hides itself in your applications in order to gather information that you’d rather it didn’t have and pass it along to people you don’t really want to know.
Spyware (also known as “Pestware” or “Adware”) is commonly passed along as a part of a download that you get from the Internet, such as a music, game or video file, or snuck along in the ActiveX controls of applications commonly run on the Internet. (ActiveX controls are automatically downloaded when you access certain applications in order to help your computer run them more effectively.)