spyware question

[low_delta]

I've heard rumors of spyware installing back doors to your computer, where outside networks use your computer's free computing power.

Can anybody tell me anything about this?

Comments

[vlinker.livejournal.com]

i think MOST spyware is involved in just looking thru your system instead of using it....

http://www.spyware.co.uk/

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1096654,00.asp

btw, there is a new worm attacking Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/ME......

http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/

even some IM programs do a bit of spying....why else, would they give then away for free?

[banana.livejournal.com]

A common hacker's ploy is to get you to install something that will report back to them when your machine is on. They can then control it to mount denial-of-service attacks on some web site. The attack is effectively untraceable because it comes from hundreds or even thousands of unrelated machines around the world. The affect on you is pretty minimal except that the attacked site may then block your IP address so you can't get to it. The hacker doesn't want to piss you off so you block his software - he wants you to keep it up so he can use you again, particularly if you have an "always on" connection like DSL or a cable modem.

To prevent this you need to be firewalled, but if you install the firewall after the event the hacker software may be intelligent enough to let itself through the firewall.

Do you think you are suffering from this?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I read this some place, and wonder how worried one should be of something like this.

Finally, there are downloads that do more than just serve ads. Some downloads that have come bundled with peer to peer management programs like Kazaa have actually hijacked user computer’s unused processing power and siphoned it off to be used in a virtual networked mega-processor. And, in the worst case, downloaded software can actually act like a virus or Trojan horse and install malicious software, or "malware", onto your computer.

I'm not worried about my computer so much as Cyn's. It is always on and connected to the internet, and it always moves so slowly. I guess I'm not actually worried, so much as wondering. Is there any way to check for something like this?

And by the way, when I cleared her cache, it didn't help her performance either.

[banana.livejournal.com]

Does she have some firewall software? Assuming that there is something unwanted on there and it isn't clever enough to defeat the firewall, that's the way to find out what's making outbound connections or listening for inbound connections. The one I use is ZoneAlarm - get the free version. She can also try AdAware which will get rid of spyware.

Does her computer need to be on all the time? Besides the security aspects, think of the electricity saved by switching it off.

"back door"

[emschin.livejournal.com]

I heard a bit about that and was puzzled by the term "back door". When you understand just what it is, I'll ask you for an explanation.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I downloaded and used AdAware last night. It got rid of some things, but it wasn't helpful on explaining just what those things were.

She leaves it on because of some sort of malfunction on startup.

[banana.livejournal.com]

If they were cookies, it's not a big problem - they're just tracking what sites she went to and what ads she's been shown. If it found executable stuff (mostly .exe or .dll files) that might be stuff giving her real problems.

> She leaves it on because of some sort of malfunction on startup.
Ouch! Sounds like she needs a wipe and re-install. Let's hope it hasn't reached Cruft Force 10.