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www.PcMag.com Fighting Spyware, Viruses and Malware
By By Ed Tittel
In a recent discussion with Symantec Corporation, I learned that Symantec found itself forced to start dealing with and adware simply because users of Symantec antivirus programs really couldn't tell the difference between a system infected with malware (virus, Trojan, worm, and so forth) and a system infested with adware or spyware. In fact, I was told that for the past 3 months, nearly one out of every five calls for help to Symantec ended up involving or adware rather than malware.
Before you feel sorry for those poor ignorant folks who can't tell the difference, stop and think about the most common symptoms. As it happens, some forms of or adware can present the same sorts of telltales that malware can—namely diminished performance, system instability that can be occasional or more constant, mysterious appearance of new processes, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports opened for no apparent reason, and so forth. However, other symptoms of adware or spyware—such as increased pop-up ads, or changes to default home pages or search engines—seldom occur from malware, if ever.
These days, malware experts recognize that certain threats should rightly be called blended, in that they combine virus, worm, and sometimes even Trojan characteristics within a single executable. But in some cases, the same is true for spyware, in that it may include Trojan characteristics (reporting of data gathered or harvested from user machines has to occur somehow, and some such software uses Internet Relay Chat [IRC] or other instant messaging services, or may simply open specific ports to signal its readiness to serve up information on demand; other types are more aggressive and include back doors or clients designed for unadvertised and unauthorized remote access). Likewise, some adware also includes mechanisms to transfer ads to user machines so that they can be displayed even when a PC isn't logged on to the Internet (and boy, can that ever give you a case of the creeps the first time that happens)!
The boundaries between malware, adware, and are getting harder to draw cleanly, so we can't help but observe that Symantec
isn't the only vendor with a well-known set of anti-virus tools (not to mention other personal and organizational security offerings) that is taking steps to exclude adware and using its protective shielding—there's an increasing trend among the major players to make antispyware/anti-adware part of their offerings, and to include such functionality in their bundled products as covered in Appendix A. But where a sense of urgency and importance in protecting one's PC from malware is pretty well understood and established, protecting oneself against adware, spyware, and other forms of unwanted software and content is really just starting to take hold. In fact, in a July 2004 report from Trend Micro (makers of PC-Cillin, another well-known antivirus package with growing antispyware and anti-adware coverage) includes this chilling statement: "Reports now show that nearly one in three computers are infected with a Trojan horse or system monitor planted by spyware. These hidden software programs gather and transmit information about a person or organization via the Internet without their knowledge." According to definitions presented earlier in this book, it's hard to say what's and what's malware because of these capabilities—it's really both!
Microsoft's Protect Your PC Web page fails to make this case. Although the company clearly recognizes the importance of patching a PC's operating system (and especially, of keeping up with security updates), strongly recommends the use of a firewall, and stresses use of up-to-date antivirus software, it omits mention of any need to protect PCs against adware, spyware, spam, and other forms of unwanted software and content. I'd argue that the company's more protective security defaults in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), along with the pop-up blocker in Internet Explorer (IE) and the more capable Windows Firewall, signify Microsoft's growing sensitivity to such matters. But the company's failure to mention adware or does not mean you needn't worry about its potential impact on your PC, or that you shouldn't add some kind of antispyware and anti-adware software to your personal PC security arsenal.
Editor's Note: PC Magazine has partnered with Wiley Books to create a series of PC Magazine and ExtremeTech books. In Fighting Spyware, Viruses and Malware technology expert and author Ed Tittel reveals the differences between viruses, spyware and adware and tells you how to use the right tools to block, beat and remove them.
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