If you want to know more about the threats and dangers pose by spyware, I strongly suggest that you keep reading. There are some real risks that you need to know about, like how spyware can violate your online privacy, and even steal your personal details for use in crime. You can lose a lot of money if the wrong people get their hands on your credit card details!

Spyware is more of a problem than most people think. In 2005, 62% of all computers were infected with Spyware – by now, it is more. This means that you are quite likely to be already infected, even if you think that you are safe.

Spyware is software that is installed on your computer without your knowledge. It is designed to secretly monitor your actions, record what you do, and to copy the information that yo type or save on your computer. When you are connected to the Internet, it makes a secret connection to a server and sends this information back home to the designer. This person can now use this information for his own purposes – which are usually criminal.

The spyware also is often used to display advertising to you. It does this by first analysing your behaviour – what sites you visit, what links you click on, what you buy, your demographics, interests, etc. When it has a good idea of what you will buy, it will start displaying ads to you. Usually this advertising is quite blatant, in the form of flashing pop-ups that appear every minute or so. Sometimes it is more subtle, such as banner ads that appear on websites that do not normally have banner ads.

Whatever form this advertising takes, it is intrusive and can be very annoying, or even disturbing.

The bigger threat is in the form of personal information which can be stolen. It is very easy for a computer program to search through all the files of your computer looking for a certain pattern – such as a credit card number. When it finds this information, it can send it to the remote server. Add this to the address and other details it is able to extract, and the spyware designer will rapidly be able to gather enough information to steal money from you, or to open up a bank account in your name.

This account then will be used to commit fraud, and you will usually be left to blame as the person responsible. This can be extremely damaging to you, and difficult to prove.

We have looked at how spyware can pose a serious threat to you. We’ve seen how it is used to spy on you, bombard you with unwanted adverts and even to steal your money or identity. I’m sure you’ll agree – this is a serious threat, and one you would be happy to avoid. Unfortunately, there is a better than even chance that your computer is already infected.

What you need to do now is get software to detect spyware. Trying to perform a spyware adware scan yourself is nearly impossible, as the spyware is designed to avoid detection. Luckily, the anti-spyware programs are designed to do this automatically. If you are worried about price, there are even cheap spyware detector programs that you can use.

Everyone in the United States has heard of the leading antivirus vendors Symantec, Mcafee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro. These companies have market-leading presence in the United States. Microsoft, as well, has plans become a key player in this market. Microsoft acquired intellectual property and technology from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in Bucharest, Romania. They also acquired Pelican Software, which had a behavior based security as well as Giant Company Software for spyware and Sybari Software, which manages virus, spam, and phishing filtering.

The Players in Antivirus Industry
A lot of discussion has centered on whether Microsoft with come to own a dominant position in the antivirus market by simply bundling its technologies with its operating systems at no charge. This is a similar technique applied in other markets such as word processing and Internet browsers.

Of course there are a number of antivirus vendors who also play in this market. There are many companies with great market presence in other countries that are beginning to become more widely known. These vendors include GriSoft out of the Czech Republic, Sophos in the united Kingdom, Panda Software out of Spain, Kaspersky in Russia, SoftWin in Romania, F-Secure in Finland, Norman in Norway, Arcabit in Poland, VirusBuster out of Hungary, and AhnLab in South Korea.

It is not clear where the industry is heading and everyone in this market faces a rapidly changing landscape. The amount of effort to find and provide fixes for viruses is staggering. Malicious programs are getting more complex and the number of them is increasing. Many companies may find themselves without the resources to match the efforts of those truly bent on creating havoc. Some virus companies are getting of hundreds of new samples a day! Moreover, the new viruses are getting “smarter” in that they propagate themselves quickly and they often hide themselves and are smart enough to move around in a system by renaming themselves in an effort to make it hard to remove them. More on Antivirus.