| Spyware costs UK around 445 million annually |
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UK has one of the highest rates of spyware infections in the world. It is next only to Thailand and the US in harbouring spyware programmes, which can track through secret programs Internet using habits of various people, according to security firm Webroot.
This was announced before a meeting between MPs and computer experts in London who were gathering to discuss about the various spyware infections and ways of eliminating them. Dr Nick Palmer MP, who sponsored the meeting at Westminster, said: "People were worried about spam but spyware is now the bigger danger".
The UK has 18 spies averagely on a PC, including cookies. Spyware comes in various categories. A larger category is the invasive programs that feed advertising to unsuspecting users known as adware. Adware slows down a PC’s performance radically. Webroot puts the rate of incidence of adware at 55% in all of consumer Windows PCs. The most malicious spyware programs which carry Trojans hide stealthily on PCs and steal most of the confidential information including passwords and login details.
Spyware and adware download onto one’s system along with file-sharing programs or media files. Internet Explorer’s browser has also reportedly many bugs which allow spyware to be transmitted easily to one’s computer.
Richard Stiennon, VP of threat research at Webroot, which estimated losses through spyware at 445 million per year attributed the figure to an estimated £100 million impact on productivity and an estimated £345m due to the time lost on cleaning the infested PCs. Each PC approximately takes four hours to eliminate spyware.
Dr. Palmer thanked Webroot when he said: “I’m delighted that Webroot has organised this important conference on the threat of spyware.” Helping in the initiative to root out spyware would be High-Tech Crime Unit, British Computer Society, EURIM e-crime sub-group among others.
Programs such as Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Patrick Kolla's Spybot are some of the most popular tools which can be downloaded from the Net to eliminate Spyware.
Posted
on : Fri, 21 Oct 2005 12:25 GMT | General News
By : Mike Lawson
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