EarthLink uncovers rampant spyware and trojan
Monday, 19 April 2004 11:43 EST



Internet service provider EarthLink and Webroot Software released a report that said an average of almost 28 spyware programs are running on each computer. Trojan horse or system monitoring programs were found on more than 30% of all systems scanned, raising fears of identity theft. The report presented the results of scans of more than one million internet-connected computers. Many of the 29 million spyware programs that were found were harmless "adware" programs which display advertising banners or track web surfing behaviours.

However, the companies also found more than 300,000 instances of programs that are capable of stealing personal information or providing unauthorised access to computers.

The Spyware programs are sometimes bundled with other software, such as peer-to-peer file sharing programs, and installed legally on users' systems. However, once installed, they run surreptitiously in the background and can be difficult to detect and remove.

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