NewsFactor Network | Internet Sleuths for Hire: Defeating Spyware

Internet Sleuths for Hire: Defeating Spyware
By Vincent Ryan

October 7, 2003 4:00AM

Digg It!

There are more than 350 different surveillance-software products available. "We're focused totally on catching the software that says it's uncatchable," says Grey McKenzie, founder of SpyCop.

If there is anything more disturbing on the Internet than spyware? Spyware programs record every keystroke and Web page a user visits, as well as every e-mail and chat session. Some do things like browser hijacking -- attempting to alter homepage, searchpage and other browser settings -- or drive-by downloading, in which programs silently load themselves on an Internet surfer's computer or pose as a legitimate program to get the user to download them.

An end-user can be a victim of these programs and not even know it. Pages of private information culled by these programs may be leaking out of a user's computer onto the Internet before the user has any notion that something is wrong.

To date, the large antivirus vendors have ignored this space, so many end-users have little knowledge of the software that spots and removes spyware and other malicious code. Following is an introduction to some of the products available.

ActiveX Blocker

If protection from rogue Internet downloads is of primary concern, Spyware Blaster, a freeware program from Javacool Software, is a good choice. Spyware Blaster's specialty is preventing the installation of spyware ActiveX controls from a Web page and disabling malicious ActiveX controls that are already present.

It does not have to be running in the background to provide this protection. Spyware Blaster does this by setting a "kill bit" for spyware, adware, dialer, browser hijacker and other ActiveX controls, said Javacool, the developer of Spyware Blaster. (Javacool declined to provide his real name.)

"The kill bits act as a global block of sorts," Javacool told NewsFactor. The spyware ActiveX controls cannot be installed and in many cases will be disabled if they are already present on the user's system. Once Spyware Blaster sets a kill bit, the "Yes/No" installation dialog box that displays when an ActiveX control tries to install will not display, Javacool said. Legitimate ActiveX controls, such as those used in Windows Update, are not affected.

Spyware Blaster's current database contains 822 items that Spyware Blaster protects against. About 100 or so are "tracking cookies" used by some advertisers. Spyware Blaster also boasts such features as Hosts Safe, which stores encrypted back-up copies of a user's host file, the local file that translates Web addresses.

Flash Killer, another capability, enables Internet users to block the installation of distracting Macromedia Flash content . Custom blocking enables the user to create a custom list of ActiveX controls that they want to block, such as search-engine toolbars and browser plug-ins, Javacool said. (continued...)