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Unwitting Collaborators, Part 3: Spyware

  • Jul 5, 2002
How can you find malicious programs that aren't obvious? Instead of coming into your system like a big, bad bomb, they simply sit quietly like a corporate assassin and steal your information. Find out how to prevent access by this "spyware."
Read the introduction to this article series.
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Introduction

Educating your employees and staff can lessen the effects of intelligence-gathering tactics like identity impersonation or theft, or vulnerabilities in the human firewall. But a more insidious way to breach your network—and no one would be the wiser—is through the use of spyware.

Spyware programs can create "backdoors" that bypass established security measures and compromise the integrity of your network. Any malicious program could give itself the same name as a trusted program to gain access to your network and secretly retrieve usernames, passwords, chat conversations, email, and more.

And it can be installed on your network by simply playing an online lottery game.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020