Hijacked by spyware: Your computer might be selling you out

If you dont know, what spyware is and what it can silently do to your life and computer, read this article. MedZilla addresses how spyware gets into personal computers and can watch users every move on the Web, gathering personal information and using it in ways that users might not want. Learn how to get rid of spyware if your PC has been infected, and how to prevent it from hijacking your computer.

Marysville, WA (PRWEB) May 21, 2004 -- It usually occurs innocently. You download a free, fun program and click quickly through the confusing legalese in the licensing agreement. Afterwards, you go and use your computer as you normally would and nothing seems drastically wrong.

What you might not realize is that you could have downloaded what has become known as spyware: an insidious intruder that watches you as you surf the web, gathers information about your activities and distributes it to companies and people who gain from the knowledge. They might be companies wanting to know if youd be interested in their products and services or, worse, people out to steal your identity.

According to Dave Dittrich, affiliate researcher with the information school, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash., spyware tends to be associated with software that is downloaded with popular applications, like file sharing programs. Historically those kinds of programs have been added as ways to gather information, but theyve burgeoned into things that will effectively pay attention to every website that you go to and, in some cases, monitor key strokes and steal passwords.

Everyone is at risk, including people using personal and business computers. Spyware is sneaky, Dittrich says. You probably wont know youve downloaded it, and you dont see the information being transferred from your machine to others. But it is happening.

One important clue is in the end-user licensing agreement. The agreement often notes when a company admits that now that youve downloaded its program, it has the right install other software on your system for whatever purpose, and that may include obtaining information about your web activity, etc.," Dittrich says. People dont realize that theyre installing software that could potentially compromise their keystrokes, credit card information and more, but theyve said its OK to do that by just clicking through the licensing agreement."

Once its on your system, spyware can do strange things, says Frank Heasley, PhD, president and CEO of MedZilla.com, a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. Spyware interferes with the use of our services," he says. People get these spyware programs on their computers and theyre basically 'hijack-ware.

According to Dr. Heasley, one of the creepy things that spyware does is it looks for key words and terms on the web page to which you go and uses that information to send you annoying pop-up ads. Some of our users have called us up and complained that were running pop-up ads on our site, which we dont. We ask them what kinds of pop-up ads and they say they see ads for casinos and pornography. Thats when we know they have a spyware problem on their computers."

Michele Groutage, MedZillas director of marketing, has fielded calls from angry MedZilla users who say they cant use the MedZilla site because they click on the companys link but are rerouted to other sites. They get rerouted because the links on their web browser have been hijacked by spyware," Groutage says. Usually, its a simple fix, but sometimes it takes hiring a computer professional to undo the mess."

Fighting back: First aid for spyware disease

There are programs, including Spybot and Ad-aware, that are designed to rid computers of spyware, according to Dr. Heasley. Downloading these programs and letting them run to search and destroy spyware is the first line of treatment, he says.

It can be a simple fix as long as the spyware hasnt robbed you of your ability to connect to the internet and download anti-spyware programs," Dr. Heasley says. If the spyware makes it impossible for you to install anti-spyware by internet connection, youll have to add the program by CD or floppy and, at that point, it may take someone who understands how your operating system works to get in there and clean it out."

Prevention is the best remedy

Firewalls help prevent intruders from entering your computer and personal and corporate computers should have them, says Dittrich, who tends to use a Macintosh and Linux systems for his work. These are not quite as vulnerable but have problems, as well, he says.

You also need to keep up with patches, or fixes, that companies, such as Microsoft, often release to ward off problems targeted at specific software programs. You can download these patches by contacting the individual companies, according to Dittrich. The best thing to do is look for advice on which programs to install and security methods to use from companies like Microsoft, which has a security site. The Cert Coordination Center Cert/CC at Carnegie Mellon. also offers information (www.cert.org)."

Another tip is to read through the arduous end user licensing agreements. These license agreements have been made more and more permissive. If you read them carefully, theyre saying essentially that anything that happens is your problem. There may be some significant changes in that area in coming years," he says.

To protect its system, MedZilla (which also uses the Linux open source operating system on many of its computers) uses a firewall and promotes communication among the people in the company. We make sure that people who are using computers internally know better than to install programs that might have spyware or other problems. We dont install funny looking cursers and toolbars on our browsers and other things that might sound cool but actually end up installing spyware on your computer," he said. Simply being aware of the problem is the first step."

For most, it is more a matter of minimizing risks than of eliminating them, Dittrich says. However, to do that, youll have to think of taking appropriate security steps, like installing firewalls and getting patches and updates, as normal, everyday business and not a burden, he adds.

About MedZilla.com

Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 71,000 archived resumes.

Medzilla® is a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc. Copyright ©2004, MedZilla, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this text in its entirety, and if electronically, with a link to the URL www.medzilla.com. For permission to quote from or reproduce any portion of this message, please contact Michele Groutage, Director of Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc. Email: mgroutage@medzilla.com.