Spyware Behavior and Characteristics

Spyware in its many shapes and forms seeks to manipulate your personal information, your web habits, or your computer itself. And it intends to do all of this where you cannot see it. Hence, it is a spy, a cat burglar rummaging through your computer.
Where Does A Computer Pick Up Spyware?
The Internet. If your computer has ever been connected to the Internet or a Local Area Network connected to the Internet, your are almost guaranteed to have come into contact with spyware. More often than not computers that are online frequently (or constantly) are infected with some kind of malicious software that is unknown to the user.

What Can Spyware Do To My Computer?
Spyware can do everything that a virus can do and more. With different variants of spyware come different risks.

• Simple spyware, like tracking cookies and malicious BHOs, most often just want to monitor where you go on the Internet and how often. These programs target you for advertising, utilizing methods from hijacking your homepage to sending you those annoying popup ads.
• More malevolent spyware can record vital information that unscrupulous 3rd parties can then use to steal money or your identity. Programs like keystroke loggers (keyloggers) can record keystrokes and advanced BHOs can detect when you enter a secure site, like a bank's personal account page. Any information that you enter online can thus be potentially stolen:
  • Bank Account Numbers
  • Passwords and email addresses
  • Home Addresses
  • Names, mailing addresses and email addresses of friends and family
  • Where you work, where your children go to school
  • Drivers License Numbers (useful for identity theft)
  • Social Security Numbers (useful for identity theft)
• The most aggressive forms of spyware can interrupt computer functionality in ways that resemble those of a virus. These programs can actually interfere with a computer's intended operations, causing it to reboot, shut down or erase important data. Dialer programs can even be downloaded onto computers with dial-up Internet connections. These dialers log users on to high-priced, premium numbers without the user knowing it . . . until the bill arrives.

How do I know if I have Spyware?
The most common symptom of Spyware is a slow machine. Spyware uses memory to run its functions, so even if you can't see the programs running, they are taking up space and resources, causing windows to open and close slowly, Internet browsers to seem sluggish, and games and programs to act bogged down or glitchy. But even if your computer doesn't experience these symptoms, it doesn't mean that it's free of malicious programs. The best thing to do is run a free scan to see if, in fact, your system is at risk.