TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Most Dangerous Types Of Spyware Increasing, States SpyAudit Survey

Most Dangerous Types Of Spyware Increasing, States SpyAudit Survey

Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)
Wed, 2 Feb 2005 09:35:22 -0500

Quarterly Review of Consumer PCs Shows Triple Digit Growth in System
Monitors and Trojans; Total Scans for 2004 Top 4.6 Million and Detect
116.5 Million Instances of Spyware and Potentially Unwanted Software

ATLANTA and BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The most
malicious forms of spyware, system monitors and Trojans, increased in
the last three months of 2004, according to the quarterly SpyAudit
report, released today by EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), the nation's next
generation Internet Service Provider, and Webroot Software, a producer
of award-winning privacy, protection and performance software. The
report also documents the complete SpyAudit results for 2004.

Results from the report, which tracked the growth of spyware on
consumer PCs since the report's inception on January 1, 2004, show the
instances of system monitors rose 230 percent, while the instances of
Trojans rose 114 percent from October 2004 to December 2004. Trojans,
keystroke loggers and system monitors are capable of capturing
keystrokes, online screenshots, and personally identifiable
information like your social security number, bank account numbers,
logins and passwords, or credit card numbers.

The number of SpyAudit scans performed during the fourth quarter also
rose with an increase of 72 percent from October 2004 through December
2004. In total for 2004, more than 4.6 million scans were performed,
discovering approximately 116.5 million instances of spyware, adware
or potentially unwanted software. An average of 25 traces were found
per SpyAudit scan for 2004. The complete report is available at
http://www.earthlink.net/spyaudit/press .

- http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=46604321

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