Keyloggers: why to keep them at bay.

Spyware software: how to protect your PC from being infected.

Spyware, Malware and Adware are commonly viewed as synonyms and they all mean the same thing: someone dishonest is trying to take advantage of you by making use of your computer. A little research quickly reveals that, amazingly, it seems that 90% of all computers that are online are infected by some or other unwelcome piece of software.

Sometimes, spyware is downloaded to your hard drive that will start recording all the keystrokes you are typing. This information is stored and then transmitted to someone who knows how and where to retrieve the file, which is subsequently mined for passwords. This type of spyware is also known as a keylogger.

You would be correct to assume that this is when the book of horror stories should be opened to recount many instances of a sad and ugly chain of events that messed up some sorry victim’s life for the coming three years, but there’s no need to look into gory details to understand the risk one is exposed to.

Sometimes, the original intent of code that has become malicious wasn’t harmful at all, but its use has become harmful because someone altered it. Invariably, this has to be someone with a goal, and if this individual has to use stealth to attain it, the odds are that his intentions are not the best to begin with. To protect ourselves against the consequences of these unwanted attacks, it is wise to check one’s computer at regular intervals against spyware.

There are many companies advertising free tryouts for their malicious software removers, all of them would like you to become a paying customer. But usually, one will find that solution A will remove some types of malware, whilst solution B will not. Quite contrary to intuition, there are extremely good free spyware programs available to anyone who wants to download and use them and that will solve the problem. SpywareBlaster, for example, is simply amazing. 

By experience, many computer users know that it will probably take at least two good free anti spyware programs to rid one’s machine of dangerous software. Performing regular upgrades if they are available should be combined to a full scan of local drives at least once a month by each of your anti spyware programs and it should be sufficient to keep your computer relatively safe.