Trilight Zone

[tricore]

Description:

Every move you make on the computer may be monitored… by a third party organization!

“That’s bad!” you scream, but it’s the reality in the computer world.

Spyware is defined as “an application that installs itself onto computers without the user’s knowledge or permission. It monitors many aspects such as surfing habits, computer usage, or consumer taste.”

Yes, it is a privacy breach, yes it is unauthorized, yes it slows down your computer, and yes it brings you more advertisements. Though spyware is not a fully recognized threat, much less publicized than the notorious computer virus of doom, it is a pain that infects 2/3 of computers worldwide.

Overall, a few spyware applications cannot do much harm to your computer but it does take away your privacy. But if enough spyware accumulates it can seriously slow down your computer, making it virtually unusable, and bombard you countless popup and banner ads you have to close. It is always good to keep your computer free of spyware.

Spyware often come bundled with third party programs and freeware. It gives an attractive offer, or convenience, but all that comes at a price, the price of compromising your privacy to malicious third party organizations.



Reason for Prevalence

The 21st century is full of advertising. Since the creation of the Internet, private companies have taken advantage by showing their catchy advertisements to ordinary consumers. Today, where countless businesses are competing for your attention, some go to desperate measures for your business, sometimes if it means breaching your privacy.
Usually, all the dirty work is done by a separate corporation who try to install spyware on computers by means of bundling with a catchy free application, or unknowingly through browser bugs. All info collected is sent to a central computer to be sorted. Then it is sold to other organizations who are interested in what is on the minds of consumers.
In the hectic society of today, there is rarely time to express you opinions legitimately for the sake of private companies, even if they are willing to pay you, many say, no, so why not get a whole bunch of people’s true opinions through the use of spyware. When asked by a private company, many would cover up their true feelings and say something that is off from their actual opinion on a product. Spyware can capture real opinions including web surfing habits without the consumer even knowing, that’s the good part for corporations, and that’s why spyware exists.

Lets give an example of this in real life. Yes there is such thing as a spyware equivalent in the real world. Think deeply, and you’ll come up with a load of example.
Safeway for instance offers a free club card. To you the consumers, all it does is bring you savings. Think again! Why you have to fill all this personal information upon registration. Why do they need it? One simple answer: consumer research. They want to know what are popular products for consumer, so they can develop a more effective marketing strategy, shipping in what is on high demand, and liquidating the useless items to perform better business.

When you approach the checkout, they’ll ask for your card. No card, no savings, but if you happen to have a free Safeway Card, swipe your card and not only will you save money on most items, every single item you purchase will be recorded and sent to a central supercomputer for processing and analysis. The products you and numerous other consumers purchase are analyzed and compiled into a summarized report. Essentially they are giving you an incentive of saving money to get valuable information about you.

The same is with a lot of other businesses who run their own credit card. When you use for example a Home Depot credit card at their store, the information is recorded, but not only that, it is added to your personally identifiable profile of applicant’s information that you had to fill out on the application form.

All this sounds innocent and legit, but your personal profile could be sold to other companies too. This is where the trouble comes. Suppose you buy a TV from the electronic store. A few days later, you may get loads of junk mail or spam email addressed to you from the competitors, offering you great deals on similar products. This may go on for a prolonged period of time. This goes to prove the real world is closely linked with the cyber world.

Though it cannot do serious damage to your computer, it takes away your privacy and lets your important info go into the hands of malicious third party organizations. Spyware is often bundled with freeware applications that are not paid for. These such applications are commonly advertised in popup or banner ads. An example is a banner offering free smiley or cursors. Once you click on it and install the software, you will have been infected with a nasty spyware program that will exploit all your secrets over the Internet, There are many kinds of spyware, which will be outlined later.

Though spyware is not recognized as a major threat in the media, unlike the notorious and highly popularized E-Mail virus, it can still cause serious harm and wreak havoc into your life. Spyware applications monitor all your system activities, whether its surfing habits, downloaded files, or even email or chat messages. In the worst cases, it can allow a hacker to remotely access your hard drive, downloading its contents, but not destroying it. Spyware is usually unnoticed, though it may slow down your PC, using up your system resources on its actions.


Symptoms:

Usually, one cannot detect the presence of spyware on their PC. It is only if you are infected by critical amounts of spyware that you start to notice these distinct symptoms:

• Major downfall in computer performance
• Numerous ads appearing even though you are not on the internet
• Mysterious or unknown icons appearing on the desktop or your taskbar
• A lot of spam messages addressed to you

To make sure, run a full system spyware scan. Though it will take up to 20 minutes on a good program, it will uncover just how much garbage there is in your PC and give you shocking results.

A typical spyware count at first scan is around 200.
Some interesting stats: 2/3 of computers are infected with spyware. A seriously infected PC can take 15 minutes to boot.

ADWare

ADvertisement softWARE is the most common type subdivision of spyware is that of Adware. The main purpose is to provide a magnet to numerous ads on the Internet.

Some of the symptoms are ads suddenly appearing for no apparent reason, even though you are not even on the Internet or the browser is not opened.

Other times, it even displays ads when the user is not currently connected to the Internet. This is probably because during previous Internet sessions, the Adware application pre-downloads advertisements using your precious Internet bandwidth. It is then stored in a hidden folder to be displayed later when offline.

This proves how desperate the E-advertising industry can be trying to sell their products.

Like spyware, adware is installed on your PC without your knowledge or consent, or it is bundled with other good software.

Dialer:

Some forms of spyware can do more than simply infecting you in the cyber world. They can indirectly make you pay money in the real world. How you ask?

A dialer like other spyware applications installs itself on your computer while you surf the web, and without user consent. Though a small file size, it can cause hectic damage. Once installed, the dialer uses your phone modem to call a list of 1900 numbers which toll you by the minute. While you are casually surfing, this malicious activity goes on in the background, costing you major backs, sometimes as high as up to $995 a month. Dialers do not benefit the hacker except to make them feel good they are harming people. Fortunately the dialer program can only operate under a dial up connection.

Here are the symptoms:

• Unusually high phone bill due to mysterious causes
• Strange dialing noises buzzing in your modem that are usually heard when connecting
• Apparition of mysterious programs that you have never seen before or remembered installing
• Computer infected with a lot of adware / spyware
• PC connects to the internet automatically even though you have not told it to do so

Remember, dialers are a criminal offense and should be dealt with immediately. If you have received major damage such as being billed a couple hundred dollars, consider taking legal action. Collect evidence of the program by burning onto a CD, as well as taking screenshots or keep phone bill receipts. After you have the evidence, immediately remove the dialer program via an antispyware or other software security utility such as AdAware or Spybot. Usually, simply hitting the delete key will not totally remove it for these clever programs make automatic backups of themselves and hide in various locations around your system

It is better not to get the dialer installed in the first place. Since they only work on dial up connections, if you have a high-speed modem, don’t bother connecting your 56k modem because all it will do is make you miserable in the long run.


Drive By Downloads

Not all ads are safe to click on. Not only can they lead you to spyware sites, some can, if clicked, install malicious programs on your computer. Its true, no matter, what browser you have, how high your security settings are on, popup or banner ads can always find a way onto your computer and install whatever they choose.

That’s where the name drive by is derived from. For example you click on a bank ad that offers low interest rates for lending, you may later discover that a monitoring program has found its way onto your PC, specifically for the purpose of capturing credit card numbers typed in for online shopping.

The best way to avoid this, don’t click on ads in whatever shape or form! Some legitimately looking ads can be the work of a con artist.


Examples:

Kazaa:

Kazaa is a peer-to-peer file sharing application made by the Sharman Corporation. It is known to be one of the top 5 deadliest threats to your computer. Easy to install, it is a killer to remove. Not only does Kazaa watch all your Internet activities, they can also show ads and install any software on your computer whether it be third party adware or updates for the main program. Soon, your computer will be so cluttered for Kazaa itself is a gateway to other spyware. To remove is an extremely difficult process. One will have to be very skilled in the area of computers and prepare for some manual labor for most antispyware applications fail to completely remove all residue of the devious Kazaa, and with an instant, the traces and backups will form themselves into the program again.
Their License Agreement was a killer too, full of contradictions and confusing mumbo jumbo to deceive ordinary users into downloading its software.

This is basically a large-scale scam. Kazaa’s lawyers know what and what can’t be convicted in court so they are partly telling the truth. For example:

“We do not consider this to be a “spyware” application, rather for the maintenance of our free network.”

They make you sympathize and accept the fact that a few measly advertisements are going to be shown to support the cause and keep this generous company in operation.

Once it is installed, the Sharman corp. goes all out, installing additional spyware, showing thousands of annoying ads and using your computer as storage and processing facility for a variety of illegal programs such as key generators or crack patches. This can get you into trouble with the law even though it is not you who downloaded it or even know about it. No wonder Kazaa slows down your computer so much.

To remove it, you have to boot into Windows safe mode then run scans with various antispyware applications, followed by a few hours of removing hidden or backup files.

Bonzi Buddy:

Bonzi Buddy is basically a browser helper object or BHO. It is disguised as an interesting informative purple monkey that you can interact with. The monkey sits on your desktop telling you useful tips, searching the Internet for a topic, helping you organize files and other useful tasks we may need assistance with.

Actually it is one of the worst spyware applications to ever exist, displaying numerous ads, downloading additional third party applications and spying on your every action.

Don’t be fooled by the purple monkey.