Malware/spyware at a glance

Over at Ars Technica, Adam Baratz and Charles McLaughlin have produced an interesting article entitled Malware: what it is and how to prevent it:

You can get infected by malware in several ways. Malware often comes bundled with other programs (Kazaa, iMesh, and other file sharing programs seem to be the biggest bundlers). These malware programs usually pop-up ads, sending revenue from the ads to the program’s authors. Others are installed from websites, pretending to be software needed to view the website. Still others, most notably some of the CoolWebSearch variants, install themselves through holes in Internet Explorer like a virus would, requiring you to do nothing but visit the wrong web page to get infected.

The vast majority, however, must be installed by the user. Unfortunately, getting infected with malware is usually much easier than getting rid of it, and once you get malware on your computer it tends to multiply.

If you’re a security expert, you won’t find anything particularly insightful in this high-level overview. However, I still recommend it because of the clear explanations and the screen shots that the authors included to illustrate some common adware/spyware programs. If you’re in charge of keeping unwanted software off a home PC or a small business network, this might be a good educational tool.

Part 2 of the series covers Spyware removal tools. Again, no great insights but good descriptions and illustrations of how five popular tools work.