Lab

Anti-spyware

Spyware is rapidly becoming the curse of the country. Often through no fault of their own, thousands of Britons are infected each day, and choosing anti-spyware to get rid of the problem is fraught with its own difficulties: over 300 products are available, but it's estimated that about 200 of those are what's known as 'rogue' applications. These apps are either spyware in disguise or even more insidious applications that install spyware themselves, which they then offer to remove only if you 'register' by paying.

UNREALISTIC claims

It doesn't help that even reputable anti-spyware companies make some dubious claims. One firm recently issued a press release to celebrate the fact that its definitions database now contains more than 100,000 'unique traces of spyware'. Yet, when talking off the record to security experts, including those who work within the threat research laboratories of the large security software vendors, there are strong indications that the actual number of individual spyware threats in the wild is nearer to 20,000 - so why the confusion?

difficulties in clarification

The problem begins with how you define spyware and ends with what you mean by traces. The former can cover everything from applications that stealthily collect personal data (including online browsing habits to sell for marketing purposes) to tools that hijack your web browser and change the search and homepage defaults. These force you to endure pop-up and pop-under adverts. Then there are the commercial keyloggers that record your every move, every password and pretty much everything else. Not to mention the tracking cookies that are also widely regarded as spyware, although adware is more appropriate a term - and even then it's highly debatable whether cookies should be classified as spyware in the first place.

Already you can see the potential for confusion in this high-stakes numbers game. Even if you settle on our 'insider dealing' figure of an absolute maximum 20,000 spyware threats, the numbers are inflated yet again when it comes to quoting trace figures. These can include multiple components of single threats: DLL, EXE and COM files, for example. It's all too easy for 20,000 to gain an extra 0 in the fight for your attention and ultimately your custom.

That's why it's of the utmost importance to ensure both your data and your privacy are properly protected. And because of this, we've developed a new labs-based testing methodology that's tougher than ever and takes account of the ever-more ingenious ways in which spyware authors are placing their code onto your computer.