Spyware on the Rise Due to Social Networking Sites
That’s what a new report on “The State of Spyware” by Webroot indicates. Social Networking sites like “MySpace” are hotbeds for spyware infection “opportunities.”
“Spyware’s threat is getting nastier. Infection rates are on the rise, in part thanks to the surging popularity of social-networking sites like MySpace.com. That’s the assessment of Webroot, a leading vendor of anti-spyware software, which released the latest quarterly update of its State of Spyware report. In order to keep its software up-to-date against the latest threats, the Colorado-based company constantly tracks the creation of new spyware—the programs that become embedded in computers and track users’ Web-surfing habits and generate annoying pop-up ads… To date, Webroot’s researchers have identified some 527,000 malicious Web sites, an increase of 100,000 from a year earlier. Overall, Molls says, 89% of consumer PCs are infected with some kind of spyware, a rate not seen in a year. And, on average, home computers contain 30 individual spyware programs.”