The 2005 Epidemic: 84% of computers worldwide infested with Spyware

Thursday, February 24, 2005

According to Panda Software's new Panda Activescan online malware scanner statistics 84% of all scanned computers were infected with spyware. These spy type applications have now overtaken the Downloader.GK Trojan, which had topped the ranking for the last eight months.

The most found spyware program during the scanning was the ISTBar followed closely Dyfuca, Cydoor, New.Net, AltNet, BetterInet, and the veteran BargainBuddy. These were the most prolifate spyware programs but many others were also found.

If you are unaware of what spyware is or are not activaly scanning for spyware on at least a weekly basis your machine is likely infected. There are a number of good free and paid programs that can scan for and remove these malicious spyware programs. There are a few programs out now both free and paid that can also prevent these spyware applications from installing themselves.

These programs work in a similar fashion to antivirus software in that they use a definition database of bad programs to search for. Your definition database needs to be updated frequently just as in antivirus to ensure that you are finding as many spyware programs as possible.

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