Spyware set for explosive increase
Spyware set for explosive increase
Spyware is set to increase massively over the next few years, which will increase the chances of information being stolen from PCs, the likelihood of identity theft and the selling of information back to anyone who is willing to pay.
Research carried out by IDC has discovered that the need to identify and eradicate these destructive programs will drive AntiSpyWare software revenues from AUS$12 million in 2003 to AUS$305 million in 2008.SpyWare causes damage to legitimate software, network performance, and employee productivity and also crosses the boundary between security and system management by flooding Help Desk with a siege of employee complaints about pop-up advertisements, applications failures, and poor PC performance.
The software also has the ability to track keystrokes, scan hard drives and change system and registry settings, which pose huge security threats because the activities can lead to identity theft, data corruption and even the theft of company trade secrets.
Brian Burke, the research manager for security products at IDC, said: "Today, more malicious SpyWare can easily infiltrate corporate firewalls. These programs make their way into the corporate Intranet under the guise of less-threatening network traffic and, once in, they can wreak havoc."
Some of the key findings of the research include discovering that SpyWare is often packaged with legitimate programs, allowing it to pass over firewalls without a challenge.
Over 600 organisations surveyed by IDC listed SpyWare as the fourth-greatest threat to a company's enterprise network security.
IDC also found that 67 percent of all computers have some form of SpyWare and rising SpyWare threats and the increasing demand for protection has forced established security vendors to build, buy, or partner with standalone anti SpyWare vendors.
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