When most of us think of spyware our minds go to James Bond movies, high tech goggles, and other cool gadgets. However, when it comes to a computer and spyware, it takes on a different connotation.
Computer spyware is software that is designed so that its authors can discover your whereabouts, what you do on your computer, and the sites that you frequently visit. This becomes a moneymaker for them to have that information. Spyware is also known as malware, which is malicious hardware because it installs itself on the computer you are using without you even being aware of it.
Once it is installed it can now watch the user’s computer habits, which becomes an invasion of the users privacy. Spyware will also plug unwanted marketing and advertising at the user. This is where the pop-up ads appear from who knows where on the users desktop. The ads that are showing are ads that it believes you will click on because it is watching your computer habits.
Another problem that the computer user will run into is that spyware bogs down a systems memory, takes up space on the computers hard drive, which will cause the performance to become sluggish. It can get bogged down to the point where the computer becomes inoperable.
Other spyware programs can record each keystroke that is entered and send them to a third party. This could potentially disclose the user ID’s and passwords to individuals wanting to steal another’s information. Spyware becomes so embedded into the computer system that it requires a lot of computer expertise to remove.