Spyware Removal Protects the Safety and Speed of Your Computer

A spyware software can get onto your computer inadvertently and literally start spying on your activities. The spaying could range from aspects such as the harmless use of cookies to track users across various websites to the more extremely perilous and dangerous keystroke loggers that are capable of recording passwords, user names, credit cards, and other confidential or personal information. An antispyware program helps protect you from the threats posed by spyware tools.

An antispyware tool searches your computer in nooks and crannies, finding malicious programs, and removing them before they get away with all your personal data. While there might be other types of spyware that exist in today’s internet world, the three most common ones that complicate the online experience are cookies, adware, and keystroke loggers.

Cookies bring the risk of lost privacy, and using these tools, someone could easily track your activities across multiple sites. The data obtained from the cookies could be combined with several databases and help in figuring out a lot more details about you. This is something that could make you feel uncomfortable. While cookies may not be harmful, they could infringe your privacy on the internet, which creates discomfort.

Adware tools track more than the movement of users across sites. They spy on installed programs, monitor computer habits, and serve up advertisements. Adware could even modify websites codes before they are displayed to you. Adwares will generally attempt to do things behind your back with the intention of getting you buy things. On the other hand, keystroke loggers and some other malicious tools exist to cause chaos and financial damage on computer users.

Spyware programs get into your computer in different ways including downloading of programs and installing them into your system, emails attachments, through open ports on your computing device that may be identified by hackers, or use of keystroke loggers installed in your computers. Other types of spywares initiate changes in your computer device, which are not only annoying but also capable of slowing down or crashing your computer.

Such programs can even change your web browser page as well as the search page by adding components onto the browsers that you do not need. The programs also make it a tall order for you to be able to set back your computer settings the way you had them before. The techniques applied by antispyware software in finding and removing spyware from your computer or network system are many and varied. However, they work similar to the systems used in detecting and removing viruses.

In detecting spyware fingerprints, the antispyware scans the hard disk checking all files against known spyware packages. A mathematical process known as hash algorithm or checksum is applied to ensure that files within the hard disk drive are exactly same as the ones noted in the database. Some antispyware use directory and file names to search and detect malware, and while this method may be good at getting false positives, it does not do the trick in getting spyware that is capable of changing names.

Another method applied by antispyware products is by carrying out registry scans to look for modifications that could have been made on the configuration files. Memory scans and URL monitoring are other techniques applied by the antispyware tools. With an effective antispyware tool that has regularly updated databases, it can be able to protect computer users from threats posed by these malwares and annoying programs.

Facebook Continuous Battle with Sophisticated Malware Attacks

Facebook heightens its network security as it continues to be targeted by internet attackers. In February 2013, a phishing attack was executed which loaded malicious software onto most laptops of its employees. The social network company employees had their laptops attacked by an attack dubbed as “watering hole”.  Facebook admitted the attack but said that no user data was compromised. This social network platform hosts more than a billion users and any breach of security could put confidential user’s information at stake.

Although Facebook said that no data was stolen from the attack, it remains a concern for many Facebook users who may feel that their information may be confiscated and ends up in hands of hackivists. Responding to the February attack, Facebook said that last month (January 2013), the company discovered that its systems had been targeted in a sophisticated malware attack.

The occurrence in February happened when some of its employees visited another mobile developer site which had been compromised. When the employees visited the mobile developer website, their laptops were remotely installed with malware that was founded on a previous unknown exploitation named as “zero day” exploit of Java programming. A zero day attack is an attack that exploits a vulnerability that has previously not been known in an network or computer application.

This means that the attack occurs at day zero of any possible awareness of a network vulnerability. To further elaborate on this term, developers consider an attack as zero day when they have zero days to address the vulnerably and provide a patch. Facebook responded swiftly to the February Java flaw vulnerability and remediated all the machines that had been infected.

The law enforcement was also informed of the attack. Facebook further said that it tracked the infection and discovered that it occurred from one laptop and all its laptops were fully-patched. The "zero day" vulnerability was undetectable and easily bypassed the Java sandbox protection leading to the infection by the malware. Following the attack, Facebook also alerted Oracle about the Java flaw and a patch was provided that addressed the vulnerability.

In yet another blow, in late march 2013, Facebook user accounts were said to have been infected with a virus containing a disturbing video. According to the New Britain police department, it said that police had learned that the virus presented itself as a friend sharing a video. If a user opened the video, the virus could attach to the user’s Facebook account and was easily shared to the friends of the user who shared and opened the message.

It would be difficult to detect that it was a virus because it looked as though the video was being shared by a friend but in the real sense, it was a virus. The police department issued a warning that the video was very disturbing because it featured a child pornography and parents were advised to advise their children who have Facebook accounts to refrain from clicking any shared videos.

In addition, users were advised to delete the shared video immediately if it was possible. This social network company has a zero tolerance for child pornography and it said that it will work hard to get rid of such content from its network site. This video orchestrated virus infiltrated Facebook account by inviting users to “Watch this if you’re curious,” The minute a someone clicked on that video, the malware took control of the Facebook user’s account and then began propagating the same malicious link to friends of the user.