One in three PCs hosts spyware or Trojans

An average of one in three PCs scanned in March and April was carrying a system monitor or Trojan horse hidden on its hard drive.

The research, carried out by privacy firm Webroot Software and ISP EarthLink, warned that these sorts of spyware can forward information about a user's online activities to another individual or company without the user's knowledge or permission.

Scans of 650,000 consumer PCs performed between 1 March and 30 April found more than 18 million instances of spyware.

Trojan horses are applications that appear to be genuine software programs, but instead hide secret and malicious code that can allow hackers to gain unrestricted access to computers while users are online.

"Consumers should be aware of the purpose of all the applications and files residing and running on their machines," said Matt Cobb, vice president of core applications at EarthLink, in a statement.

"While certain types of spyware are malicious, other programs can be used to improve users' internet experiences.

"After the discovery of harmful spyware, users need to take action to immobilise or remove the programs that they don't want on their machines."

Nick Lewis, managing director of Webroot UK, added: "Based on the overwhelming number of spyware traces identified in just four months, we continue to urge consumers to run an audit as soon as possible to determine if they have spyware on their PCs and then take action to manage it."

See also:

Spyware

An increasing number of web users are inadvertently downloading software which can trap ID and password information for online bank accounts.  22 Sep 2004

Most US firms ignore spyware risk

'No problem' despite warnings on covert gathering of information  02 Sep 2004

Huge increase in virus-infected spam

Virus writers cash in with latest breed of email threat  17 Aug 2004

Akamai investigates denial of service attack

Affected customers included Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo  17 Jun 2004

Zombie PCs generate 80 per cent of spam

Majority of junk mail coming from home PCs infected with spam Trojans  03 Jun 2004

Bugwatch: The new nasties

Adapting security policies to cover all threats  05 May 2004

PCs infested with 30 pieces of spyware

Who's watching you online?  16 Apr 2004

Security

The latest wave of cyber-crimes and acts of vandalism have demonstrated once again that many systems are still vulnerable to attack.  15 Apr 2004

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