To go along with Bel's Virus warning.

[Mtnjim]

Harvard Law school, Oxford Universities's Internet Institute, Google, Lenovo, Sun and assisted by Consumer

Reports' Web Watch have founded an Anti-spyware organization.

See:

http://www.stopbadware.org

It's a new site, so not "bunches" of stuff there yet.

[belgareth]

According to what I read

recently, spyware and computer invasions are no longer the provence of the lone hacker. More and more this is the

work of mafia like groups in eastern European countries and South America. They use spyware to invade computers and

steal personal data which is then used to steal from you. They also use thousands of invaded computers to extort

money from large corporations through the threat of denial of service attacks. The problem has become huge.

At

the end of each year I summarize the work in my company, where our money comes from. It helps me plan for the next

year. Last year, nearly 2/3 of our service calls were spyware or virus problems! My company is small, we don't have

a huge market share and don't cover a large area. The size of the problem is incredible.

[Mtnjim]

Bel;
You're absolutely right. Not

counting Sony's recent f-up, spyware has changed. No longer is it that pimply, sweaty palmed, loner computer nerd

in the basement who is bored with nothing else to do. Today, it's criminals creating "bot nets" to extort money

from on line businesses (especially gambling sites) by threatening Denial of Service attacks. The other major

problem is spyware installing "key loggers" that record and transmit back to malicious web sites (usually in eastern

European countries-can anyone say Russian mofia?-, China, and North Korea) your keystrokes. With these, they can

steal passwords, banking information, and credit card information. Next thing you know, your credit cards are maxed

out and your bank accounts are empty. OOOPS!!

Unfortunately, a lot of spyware comes with "popular" things. "Free"

programs (hey, want some “free” screen savers?), "Cracked" software and Peer to peer servers sharing stolen music,

books and movies, and "Porn" and gambling sites". This means that people without knowing it "do it" to themselves,

either by installing the “free stuff” or web surfing to the wrong places.

[belgareth]

Your preaching to the chior,

sir. :) Although you are overlooking Argentina. A lot comes from there as well as South Africa.

That's all part

of our standard lecture to end users. We even have it in a document we hand out to clients. The best part is when

the employees tell their boss that we are full of crap and that doesn't happen. Then, next month we get to come

back out again and fix the same problem and give the same lecture again. Some are a little slow, it takes three or

four times before they make their employees quit downloading that trash. Nothing like costing the boss a few hundred

dollars in repairs to get their attention. I'd really rather play with interesting things but it does help pay my

bills.

[Netghost56]

No longer is it

that pimply, sweaty palmed, loner computer nerd in the basement who is bored with nothing else to do.
Hey!

I'm not pimply! :lol:

Seriously though, I'm an ex-hacker in rehab. Messed around once too often, if you know

what I mean.

[tim929]

Did you get any unwanted

attention from federal authorities?:lol: I was listening to a guy on the radio the other night being intervewed who

spent time in a federal hostel for hacking who does security consulting now.The picture he painted of the security

problems with the internet was considerably less than encouraging.

[Netghost56]

Not federal, just local. I

paid bigtime for it.