Spyware Detection for PCs

Adware and Spyware are malicious software that allows the creators to spy on your browsing activity, invade your privacy, and flood you with annoying/offensive pop-ups. Often times your browsers default homepage and settings can be hijacked and you can not change them back by the normal known procedures. These software programs are often downloaded onto a user's machine from the Internet without the user's knowledge and installs itself on your machine.

Ad-Aware by Lavasoft

Ad-Aware is a tool developed by Lavasoft (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ ) that can scan the memory, registry and hard drive and external storage devices for known data-mining, tracking, and other malicious advertising components on your machine. The program also has a built-in live update tool which can be used to update the latest signatures from their web servers. Ad-Aware scan will list any known spywares/adwares and offers to remove or quarantine such components. However, removing certain components may impact the functionality of the software applications affected by the spyware/adware. It is advisable to read the Ad-Aware documentation before removing any files.

Ad-Aware offers free and paid software. The free software, which is for use on personal machines, can be downloaded from Lavasoft at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ . Ad-Aware SE personal with advanced features can be purchased from this site as well.

Lavasoft has also released a Professional edition, which is recommended for departmental use, in August 2004. Details can be obtained from (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adawareprofessional/ ).

Features in Ad-Aware SE Professional edition as excerpted from the Lavasoft web site include:

• New command line parameters that allow for silent and automated operation of Ad-Aware
• UNC support for remote storage of preferences, definitions, and log files
• New results screens and detailed statistics
• Improved logging and reporting
• Hardened against third party uninstall with encrypted preference files
• Links to more information on detected content from our web site
• New safety option that allows you to write protect sensitive system files such as the Hosts file
• Improved scanning Engine
• Extended disk and registry scanning
• Improved user interface

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot - Search & Destroy is another tool which can be used to detect and remove spyware/adwares of different kinds from your computer. Spybot-S&D is free and can be downloaded from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html . The Spybot-S&D web site provides excellent documentation. Detailed tutorial of how to install and the software and use it to remove spywares/adwares from you machine can be found at http://www.safer-networking.org/en/tutorial/index.html .

Spybot-S&D also allows users to clean usage tracks on shared machines. The software can be used in two modes - Easy Mode (basic) for new users and Advanced Mode for professional users. Advanced Mode allows users to fix some registry inconsistencies and extended reports.

A list of features of Spybot-S&D is available on the site http://www.safer-networking.org/en/features/index.html