SPYWARE, MALWARE & SCUMWARE

Identifying, removing and preventing Parasites

What are Parasites?
Call it what you may, depending on small differences in the function of the malicious code; adware, spyware, malware, hijackers and automatic dialers are all parasites that infest computers, slow them down, spy on web activity and in some cases result in loss of money or PC instability.

How do they get on my computer?
There are two main ways that parasites come to reside on PC's.  Intentional installation of what appears to be a needed or desired piece of software and "drive by" installs.
As to the first, many "freeware" and "shareware" programs are great pieces of software written by programmers trying to contribute to the world of computing.  Others however, are created specifically to make money.  Search tool bars are a great example of the latter, with the exception of tool bars provided by major web players (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ebay and AOL), most are actually parasites that track web surfing, hijack search results and generate pop-up and page ads.  Another area that almost always results in unintentional installation of parasites is music sharing programs.
The second method of infestations, and by far the most insidious, is the "drive by".  Web marketeers inbed code in web pages that launches onto a PC when the page is accessed.  The user never even knows that they have been infected.

Currently, the parasite situation on the web, has become an epidemic. Virtually all unprotected PC's that ITforHire works on are infected, many to the point of being unusable. If a PC has been infected, ITforHire can help. Our technicians can remove current infestations and provide the best, most up to date, protection against reinfestation.

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