How does it work?

How Does It Work?

The risks come in various forms: Adware, spyware, viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. Any type of program that contains any of these risks is called Malware. Protecting your computer begins with a basic knowledge of what you are protecting it from.

Adware:

Adware doesn’t damage your system in any way – in most cases. The purpose of adware is to show you ads, in relation to websites that you are visiting. It is not the fault or intention of the websites that you are visiting for this to happen. It is the fault of the person or company who included adware in their freeware program that you downloaded in most cases.

While adware isn’t usually dangerous, it is annoying, and it can slow down the operation of your system. You will get all sorts of pop up ads – even if you have a pop up blocker, and you will probably find that your browser’s home page or start page has been changed to something you don’t recognize, and don’t care to see.

Unfortunately, when most people download and install free software, they do not really read the license agreement before installing. In most cases, you are agreeing to have the adware installed on your system, along with the software that you originally wanted.

Spyware:

Spyware is dangerous, because it is used to collect information from your computers hard drive. It may just look for information, or it may record keystrokes. In other words, when you go to your banks website to do a little online banking, the spyware will not only record what site you went to, but it will record the keys you typed in to access your account. That information will then find its way to the creator of the spyware.

It can also record information when you fill out an order form to make a purchase, capturing your credit card information, name, billing address, phone number, or any other information you input. This is one way that identity theft occurs.

Spyware gets on your computer through free software downloads, but it can also automatically be downloaded from disreputable websites, such as pornography sites. Spyware can also arrive as an email attachment.

Viruses:

There are essentially two types of viruses – regular viruses and email viruses.

A regular virus is software that is attached, or attaches itself, to programs that you commonly use, such as your database program or your spreadsheet program. Each time you run the program that the virus is attached to, you are essentially running the virus as well.

While the virus is running, it looks for other programs that it might like to copy itself to, so that it can come out to play when you run those programs as well. While it is looking for ways to spread itself, it is also doing its damage, by moving or erasing files, rearranging data so that your system doesn’t operate correctly, or even digging around your hard drive looking for information that it can quietly send back to its creator.

The virus may even be opening up a back door so the creator can come into your system and look around your hard drive themselves – without you even realizing they are there. It is almost like having someone roam around inside your house – while you are there – without you even realizing that you are not alone!

Email Viruses stick to email. They usually spread themselves by automatically mailing itself to everyone in your address book. These viruses, once opened by unsuspecting email readers, can then act just like regular viruses, by attaching themselves to other programs and doing damage to the computer system. Regular viruses often arrive by email as well.

Worms:

Worms are much like other viruses, but they prefer to work in computer networks. The worm looks for security holes on other machines in the network, and then copies itself to the new machine. It is never satisfied, and it continually looks for more machines to infect. While it is looking for another machine to infect, it acts as a regular virus, running amuck in systems and causing problems.

Trojan Horses:

A Trojan horse also works just like a virus does, but it has no way to spread itself automatically. The difference between a regular virus and a Trojan horse is that a regular virus hides from you, while a Trojan horse is right out in the open, pretending to be something that it isn’t. It may be a game that you’ve downloaded or a useful program that will help you become more effective in your work – but while you are being effective or enjoying the game, the Trojan horse is running through your system causing all sorts of problems. Some Trojan horses even give up all pretense of being that fun game or useful program, as soon as you’ve downloaded and installed it – it let’s you know what you’ve done!