Is Spyware Advancing Or Retreating?
from the depends-on-how-you-count dept
zanek writes "Two new reports paint very different pictures of the spyware landscape in 2005. Who to believe?" The study claiming it's advancing comes from Webroot, who comes out with these reports every few months -- and whose methodology is questionable. As we've pointed out in the past, they include tracking cookies in their list of spyware, which greatly skews their results. Whether or not you believe tracking cookies are good or bad, it's pretty clear that they're not the same thing as what most people think of when discussing spyware.
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Spyware is decreasing...
In the past, our company had to re-image 2-5 PCs a week because of spyware infestations that could not be cleaned. That number is now 0.
First, our web content filtering won't let the user population hit the sites that install this stuff. For those PCs that are already infected, the spyware can no longer phone home to send information or download updates, so it's rendered virtually harmless.
Second, our IPS is actively dropping all spyware-related traffic where known signatures are configured to do so.
Third, we are piloting anti-virus + anti-spy for the desktops, which also provides protection from other types of unwanted programs.
Even if someone brings in a CD with malware on it, it's not going to infect any of our systems.
And, it won't matter if spyware ramps up or down out there in the slime bucket that is the Internet as long as these simple controls are updated and maintained properly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Major cause of it decreasing
People are also getting smarter about how to get rid of it as well, and doing the job themselves. Effectively cutting my business :(
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