Print
DiscussSome of the worst scourges for us Netizens these days are all the spyware, adware, and other Internet flotsam and jetsam that end up on our PCs when we visit various web sites. Our family and associates have begun running Spybot Search & Destroy (available at
http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html) and/or AdAware (available at http://www.lavasoft.com/) several times a week on our PCs just to clean this bothersome junk off our systems.Usually, the rubbish that these "malware" cleaning utilities find and remove are simple tracking cookie files from legitimate web sites that we’ve visited. These files record info such as when you last visited the site, where you came from to get there, and what pages you visited while on their site. Usually, they’re nothing much to worry about; and unless they’re "phoning home" to their masters with your personal information, they’re less of a nuisance than the "no-see-ums" (tiny mosquitoes) that bother us here in the South Carolina Lowcountry in the summertime.
However, there are certain web sites that are havens for a variety of malware, including:
- viruses that infect or disable your PC and try to propagate themselves via email;
- popup ads for all sorts of "warez" (a hacker culture term for various products for sale over the Internet), which can often slow your system to a crawl;
- keystroke loggers that wait to grab your financial account or credit card information and pass it along to Internet thieves;
- "Trojans" that try to turn your PC into a "zombie" that can be remotely ordered to perform the bidding of their Trojan masters (including using your PC as an email spam generator or as a pawn in a distributed Denial of Service attack on some business’ web site).
There are even organized crime groups (often located in Russia, China, Romania, Turkey, and other countries with lax computer crimes law enforcement) that advertise the rental of such "bot-nets" by the hour to other criminals for their nefarious use.
Wanna Make a Bet?
So where do you think you’d likely run across such ne’er-do-wells on the Internet?
Porn and gambling sites.
Yes, those XXX-rated and adults-only web sites seem to be a haven for the Dark Side of the Internet Force. According to several computer repair technicians who were interviewed by
Network World magazine, it has become standard practice for them to first check for porn on a user’s PC when they complain about annoying popups, lockups, and slowdowns:"Almost universally, it's what the problem is," said one cons
RSS