Spyware Cleaners and what spyware does to your machine
Spyware and adware can prove to be extremely annoying in a number of ways. Programs vary greatly in terms of damage, and there are is a wide range of malicious software that might just slow your computer down, all the way up to programs that render your computer completely unusable. In order to protect ourselves from harmful programs it is important to know exactly what they can do.
The first thing spyware does is slow down your computer. Why? Well, malicious programs typically have to perform a function like tinkering with your settings, displaying pop-up advertisements or recording your information, and in order to do this they need to use your computers RAM and CPU. Therefore, software may run slower due to adware and other programs taking up your computers resources.
When this happens, you'll often find that your computer takes a much longer time to start up, and it takes a much longer time to open software. It can also cause your computer to completely lock up and have trouble running complex programs that it could otherwise normally handle. The problem increases with the more spyware you get. If you have noticed your computer seems to have become slower and slower for no apparent reason, then there is a good chance your machine is infected.
Other than slowing your computer down, a second thing programs like this do is relay information (this is the definition of spyware, which aims to "spy" on you). This is much more damaging than programs that simply slow your computer down, because it puts all your information at risk. You have probably heard of things like identity theft before. Well, guess what, a very large amount of this arises from cyber-criminals who infect numerous machines.
If you use the internet to order online, then malicious programs running in the background can easily record sensitive information such as bank account numbers and passwords, as well as access details to paypal and other online processing systems. People who make malicious programs and record information like this often sell it to other criminals, who use it mostly for identity theft (and occasionally for money laundering). As you can imaging, this is the most damaging kind of spyware.
How can you protect yourself from things like this? The first thing is to get some kind of spyware cleaner software. This will scan your PC from a database of thousands of known threats, and then try to delete any spyware found.
by Brad Edwards
keyword : spyware
