Spyware Removal Introduction

Spyware Removal is an introduction article to give you relevant information, and methods how to block spywares.

It will also gives you information relevant to security and malware .

Spyware also pronounce spy ware. It is a piece of software that design to spy and steal information from an infected device.

The spying methods of spyware can be recording key stroke to steal private password and other sensitive information.

Spyware can also be used to track your online activity for statistics and to recommend you on a sites that are alike the one you using.

It can also use to force you with unwanted home page and unwanted popup that may cause your system to be slow.

Know that: unwanted popup may include sexual and pills materials.

Another type of spyware can be a Trojan that may install on your system and do all kind of stuff to your system.

Like open a backdoor, download more malwares in to your computer and so on.

The best way to fight spyware is to install antivirus software, anti-malware software and run them on a regular basis.

Keep them update with new file definition.

I also recommended using some tools that not required installation, more about it in this article.

Malware worth money:

Another aspect that need to be taken into consideration in related to spyware is that there are a lot of money involved in this field.

The stolen information can be sold for a high price to someone that need it and know how to use it.

Think what a database of 1 million users with emails, phone number and address can do for a company that send spam messages.

To prevent infection and to be able to use spyware removal tools you have to be a security aware user.

We all read or hear on the news about hacker hacking into organization stealing sensitive data, most of the time that data can be related to us, a user that use the hack site.

Spyware removal as the human virus:

Like in real life, when we have a virus we need to take a medicine to be cure from that virus. Like in real life. We can immune our self for some of viruses, by getting a vaccine on a regular basis. Preventing, not 100%, the infection of that virus. Most of the time, if the vaccine is good and we do get ill by that virus, it is much easier to our body to fight that virus and the illness can be easy for us.

Also for spyware, we can use some tools that we can install on our system. We can also make a non-install spyware removal arsenal tools that we can use on a regular basis.

Let me give you a tip, and that is probably the best tip that you can get in related to malware in general and spyware in particular think before acting, let me explain you why.

Think before act:

First you need to understand spyware like any other type of malware is a file, a file that when it run it start doing something that can be flag as problematic, if no one run this file it can’t harm your system.

Spyware can be attach to another legit file. For example you can download game from some ware and a spyware can be attached into one of the executable game files.  Once this file run the spyware will also start running and start doing what it designs to do – infecting your system.

Spyware can be hiding in images, in URL and can be send over by emails and social network.

So to think before act means when you thinking to press on an image that was send to you look if the image is a link.

Right click it and copy the link. Check in google if that link is a legit site, a document or a malicious site that may install spyware into your system.

Antivirus software:

Antivirus software, using some sort of algorithm to try and identify if file is legit, a type of malware or Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP), there are 2 main scanning methods that antivirus using.

Database signature:

The first is against a database that contain signature of files that known as malwares. Every antivirus vendor hold a signature of files that represent malware. Then they classifying them into a signature. Using this method it can flag new variant of know malware as malware.

In the old days you used to generate a signature for the file. Then the antivirus scanner just compare the current scanning file against signatures in its database. If it gets a match it flags the file as malware.

Due the fact that every bit of change to the file change it signature, this technique was less officiant.

So, the classification method was created. In this method the created signatures are from parts in the file. Most of malware share common code between more than one type of malware. It also true to new variant of the same malware.

Heuristic scanning:

The easiest way to understand heuristic scanning is to think about list of common function to all malwares. Then give each function a number that represent its danger level. Now when scanning a file, if the score it gets is more than a selected number flag it as malware.

A basic example will say that if the file is using a file packer we can rise to the score. If the file tries to copy itself to another file, we can also rise the score.

file packer are common in malwares, as they encrypt the real file.

The big disadvantage that heuristic method has is false positive. Means we flag files as malware even if they were not malware. Modern antiviruses are manage to reduce it to near zero false positive now days.

Antimalware software:

It started as a side kick tool to Antivirus, with the changes in the security terms, and the new variants of viruses or alike, a new term create malware, the general term that under it contain viruses, Trojan, spyware, rootkit, adware and more.

Antimalware supposed to be a full security tool. Due to its name it need to find and remove all types of malwares. Including Trojans, viruses, spyware, adware, worms, rootkits, phishing etc.

With that in mind today antivirus and antimalware scan, find and remove all types of malwares. You are covered from both of them. The cool thing is that they can live together on the same device.

If you ask me, use both.

This is like getting another opinion about your problem. Let them both scan your system in trying to find malware that can harm your system

Arsenal tools to have:

We need some tools in out arsenal to fight spyware and other types of malware. To start with we need to understand what we have out there.

We have to types of tools, we have free tools that gives you basic features and paid tools that can give you some additional features.

There are some free antivirus that you can download from the internet. These tools will give you the option to scan files, delete infected files, free updates and a real time monitoring to catch virus as they come in.

Same goes to anti-malware tools. There are free that you can download, and install, most of the free version does not include real time protection in them.

Other than Antivirus and Antimalware there are some other tools that you need to know about. They are tools that does not require installation and can be run on demand. You can download them from the internet and use them.

Put them on a USB disk, as example, to check other computers that you have and run them from the USB device.

Mobile devices:

With the rise of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones it was just a meter of time till we can find malware to mobile devices.

They are here for quite a long time and they are here to stay. As today every one uses its device for a lot of task from payments, banks, social account and more.

The devices are getting stronger from hardware perspective and use in home network and connected to other devices, like your home PC.

Mobile device is another option to malware writer to spread the malicious code, in mobile devices they can steal sensitive information, spread to other devices, use it to enter block locations and more.

Today we look on vulnerabilities as options to use for spreading malwares and hacking into devices. Mobile devices has a lot of tools and games that still need to be investigated. This is probably the next step in security.

Today, you can download free antivirus for your mobile device. You should do it if you haven’t done it yet. It is important to make your device as secure as possible. There are a lot of private information on phone devices.

Same role apply here as in your local PC, awareness and thinking. We all use our mobile for email, social and other online activities, we need to think before we do.

Emails:

Emails are one of the mostly usage method to spreads spywares and other types of malware. It can be usage to target organizations by sending email to list of users in that organization. If one of the users will press the link in the email the entire organization can be infected.

Using that the attacker can gain access into sensitive organization data, like customers, user data central database and so on.

One of the stronger security method that are in use and include machine learning technique is the email spammer.

That base on all kind of parameters can flag emails as spam. Automatically delete them or send them into the spam/junk folder in your email.

Facebook:

We all know Facebook the bigger social network. This social network knows a lot of information about people, due to the fact that people share all their life in that network.

The think before act is really relevance to Facebook. You have to remember that everything you send online stay online, and can be used to identify you.

In Facebook, you need to verify that you apply all the security option that you have to make your account safe from hackers, and spammers.

they can use your account to spam your wall and friends and to spread malware.

You also need to be aware that pressing on images in Facebook can lead to a phishing site that can be used to hack your account. No I do not say that you should not press on images or links. Just think before you press.

Ask yourself:

Do you know the user that send you the link?

How many users press this link?

If you move you mouse on the link see what is the target site it is pointing.

LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks:

What true for Facebook is true for other social networks. Images may contain phishing links and links may be phishing.

The best way is to check the link before you click on it.

There are a lot of shorten URL services, that let you take a long URL and make it short.

A lot of users post short URL to save characters, so do phishing URLs.

If you unsure about a URL you can use an un-short URL service to see what the real site is. Most of the services are free to use and you can find them on the internet with a small search.

As an example, I found out that some of the links I check lead to a sexual content.

File downloading:

File downloading is something that we do on a daily basis. Actually when we go into a website, we are downloading HTML, CSS and JavaScript files that represent the site we are in.

An antivirus with real time monitoring should check each file we download to see if it contains malicious code.

In case of downloading a compress file (like zip, rar etc.) I will recommend you to let your antivirus scan the file and the files inside it to verify that it does not contain some sort of spyware.

P2P networks like torrents:

I am not going to write a lot about it. Just make sure your antivirus software is installed and up to date. That will ensure that you are covered in a case of malware. It will give you more protection against spyware or other malware in the downloaded file.

Make sure the P2P software you are using are updated to the latest version. The latest version supposed to be include with the last fix and patches.

Public WiFi environment – your loved coffee shop:

Today we have a free WIFI almost everywhere. We all like to connect our laptop, table and smartphone to that free WIFI. We need to remember that public networks can be use by everyone.

What if some of the users that use it are hackers. What if he use a sniffing tool to catch passwords over the network. My recommendations are to reduce the use of public network to enter sensitive account, like your bank account.

Data backup:

To close all this long article, I would like to mention backup. Yes, we all know about it, and if we lose our data once we start doing it!

Backup is important to do as part of our weekly task. We all take ton of pictures, write articles and other thing that we need to backup in case something happens. Keep in mine that even after using spyware removal it may be to late if your files were change by the spyware.

In case of mobile devices. You can configure automatic backup to one of the cloud service. The imported thing is that we make another copy of our data.

Online backup can be use one of the cloud service. Starting with free account and depending on your needs pay for more. It can also be used from your local computer. Using a tool that can sync and upload files that had been change. You can also upload the files manually from time to time.

Offline backup is using an external device like a USB hard drive. Copy the data to that hard drive, you can also find tool to automate the process this process. Keep in mine. You will also have to transfer your file from your mobile device into the external hard disk.

In general, it is highly recommended to make backup of your data. In a case of a problem like spyware other malware or even an electricity fault, your data may be damage or deleted. With a regular data backup process you can save you data! Keep that in mine.

Conclusion:

As a conclusion to this article;

I would like to mention that there are spyware, malware and other malicious that may harm your device. Using some of the free tools, like antivirus and antimalware to protect your system is a must.

But always be aware as awareness to what you are pressing on, installing and using it up to you.

Hope you enjoy the article about spyware removal introduction.

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