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Have you noticed strange windows popping-up when using your
browser? Has your browser start-up page suddenly changed to
a new site, all by itself? Have you seen windows popping-up
even when you are not even running your browser?
Welcome to Spyware, the Internet's most annoying phenomenon!
Spyware refers to a family of programs that are usually
installed on your computer without your knowledge while you
are surfing the Web. These programs are often bundled with
programs that you download "for free." For example,
file-sharing programs, such as Kazaa and Blubster, are
notorious for including spyware with their downloads.
The purpose of spyware is to track the Web sites that you
visit and the products you purchase, primarily for marketing
purposes. Your information is reported back to the spyware
company, which then creates a profile about you, to target
you for various types of advertisements and marketing. In
extreme cases this spyware can "hijack" your browser,
changing your startup page, causing windows to pop-up, and
forcing you to visit Web sites to view advertisements or
other materials. No matter how many times you close the
windows, they pop-up again and again.
In answer to this threat, several companies are marketing a
new class of products designed to remove the offending
programs. Lavasoft has developed a product called Ad-Aware
that scans your hard drive and removes the spyware. Ad-Aware
is very effective and allows you to download new spyware
definitions so that new variations of spyware can be
detected and removed.
In order to provide spyware protection to the Temple
community, we have purchased a limited number of Ad-Aware SE
Plus licenses for faculty and staff on-campus use. Home
users and residence hall students can download a free
version of Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition.
For instructions on how to download, install, and use the
on-campus or home-use Ad-Aware software, go to:
http://www.temple.edu/cs/security/spyware
If you have any questions about the program, please contact
the Computer Services Help Desk at 1-8000.
I urge you to take advantage of this program so that we can
keep spyware attacks on Temple computers to a minimum. Thank
you very much for your cooperation. |
