Increase in crime-related spyware – report

[Keith]

Just found this article here http://www.digitalmediaasia.com/defa...rticleID=10268 reproduced it all below as it highlights the fact that the problem is getting worse in some areas.

Increase in crime-related spyware – report 19/09/2005 by John Tilak Fifteen percent of spyware threats actually steal passwords and log keystrokes, while also attempting to steal logged-on user names, the hash of administrator passwords, instant messaging usage and email addresses, according to a study from Aladdin Knowledge Systems, a provider of software digital rights management (DRM) and USB-based authentication solutions. The Aladdin E-safe Content Security Response Team (CSRT) conducted a two-month analysis of the top 2,000 known spyware threats. The study illustrates that a growing amount of spyware is specifically designed for identity theft and continues to compromise both personal and commercial privacy, with potentially dangerous effects for large organizations in need of protecting proprietary information. Fifteen percent of spyware threats send private information gathered from the end user currently logged on to the infected system, such as logging the user's keystrokes, logged-on user name, hash of administrator passwords, e-mail addresses, contacts, and instant messengers login and usage. Twenty Five percent of spyware sends information gathered from the victim's operating system, including the computer (host) name, domain name, logs of all processes running in memory, installed programs, security applications, client's internal IP address, OS version, the existence and versions of service packs and security updates, TCP ports the spyware is listening to, computer security identifier (SID), default browser's homepage and browser plug-ins. Sixty percent of spyware transmits gathered commercial-value information about the end user's browsing habits. This includes keywords used in search engines, browsing habits and ratings of frequently visited websites, and shopping reports