Familiarize yourself with the enemy
Sure you've been warned about viruses, spam, spyware and the like. But do you really understand what they are? Take some time to get to know what dangers are floating around in cyber-space these days.
Virus
A Virus is software used to infect a computer. After the virus code is written, it is buried within an existing program. Once that program is executed, the virus code is activated and attaches copies of itself to other programs in the system. Infected programs copy the virus to other programs.
The effect of the virus may be a simple prank that pops up a message on screen out of the blue, or it may destroy programs and data right away or on a certain date. It can lay dormant and do its damage once a year. For example, the Michelangelo virus contaminates the machine on Michelangelo's birthday.
Viruses Must Be Run to Do Damage
A virus is not inserted into data. It is a self-contained program or code that attaches itself to an existing application in a manner that causes it to be executed when the application is run. Macro viruses, although hidden within documents (data), are similar. It is in the execution of the macro that the damage is done.
 Among the many threats that can harm businesses, viruses and virus outbreaks continue to cause businesses to lose the most money. The Computer Security Institute declared the following based on data collected from their 2005 Computer Crime and Security Survey: respondents claimed viruses caused organizations the greatest financial loss, over $42 million and approximately 1/3 of the cost for all computer security incidents combined. The total financial loss due to computer security incidents reported by 700 respondents was listed at over $130 million (reported by 90% of respondents).
In the ICSA Labs annual virus prevalence survey, over half the respondents reported the latest “virus disaster” alone cost them over $40,000.
Viruses do more than zap money. Other effects include recovery time after an outbreak has occurred and organizational impact an outbreak has on a company.
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 Spyware
Software that sends information about your Web surfing habits to its Web site. Often quickly installed in your computer in combination with a free download you selected from the Web, spyware transmits information in the background as you move around the Web. Also known as "parasite software," "scumware," "junkware" and "thiefware," spyware is occasionally installed just by visiting a Web site.
It Might Even Tell You It's Spyware!
The license agreement that everyone accepts without reading may actually state that you are installing spyware and explain what it does. For example, it might say that the program performs anonymous profiling, which means that your habits are being recorded, not you individually. Such software is used to create marketing profiles; for example, people who go to Web site "A" often go to site "B" and so on. Spyware may deliver competing products in realtime. For example, if you go to a Web page and look for a minivan, an ad for a competitor's vehicle might pop up.
Spyware Is Focused
 Merchants place ads with spyware advertisers because they feel their promotions are focused. In fact, many feel that the Internet has opened up the most intelligent marketing system the world has ever seen. Merchants say they are targeting prospects who are really interested in their products, and spyware vendors argue that as long as they treat users anonymously, they are not violating privacy.
There are also spyware programs that keep changing the home page in the browser to a particular Web site or just keep popping up ads all the time. Nevertheless, once you detect spyware, it can be eliminated, albeit with difficulty sometimes.
Spyware Vs. Viruses
Since spyware and adware are unwanted software, it would seem that antivirus software should detect spyware and adware as well as viruses and Trojans. Although some security suites provide all these capabilities, antispyware and antivirus modules are typically separate functions.
Perhaps, it evolved in different camps because the intent of the software is different. Virus writers want to be exposed to the world at large so they can one-up their peers, the "xyz virus contaminated 100 million computers" type of glory. On the other hand, spyware writers want their software to remain hidden and perform their tasks for months to come.
IDC estimates that 67% of computers have some form of spyware. *Spyware is difficult to remove from a PC because one spyware infection can include hundred of files, programs, and system changes. Spyware can also reinstall itself if not removed correctly."
Why should small and medium businesses be concerned about spyware?
(Benjamin Edelman)
Privacy
Spyware programs primarily track what web sites users visit and search for. Harmless? Not at all. This tracking paints a surprisingly detailed picture of your company’s operations. Searching for an acquisition, being bugged by a competitor or researching to develop a new product can all be implied by employee’s web-browsing activities. Even "adware" (those annoying pop-up ads) typically track, transmit, and store this information.
True spyware villainy comes in the installation of tracking to record passwords, PIN numbers, or even keystrokes. Once all this information is gathered, accessing your network and customer lists becomes simple.
Performance, Reliability, and Productivity
 Spyware is detrimental to computer performance and reliability. Spyware-infected PCs often take extra time to boot up, load programs, and retrieve web pages. Spyware programs run all the time without users requesting them, so they tend to slow things down. A user may think they have two programs running, when really they have ten. And if one of those spyware programs crashes, it could take out all the rest.
In a business setting, productivity is always important. Remove this junk from users’ computers, and they’ll have fewer distractions wasting their time. Plus, you’ll free up disk space and memory, and even reduce the size of PC backups.
Special Problems for Business Networks
These days, most businesses are networked. But LAN file-sharing offers an additional way for spyware to spread. If one machine gets infected, it can spread to all the rest.
Finally, repairing the damage from spyware is costly for a business. When time is wasted and data is lost, money goes down the drain. Even cleaning a PC is costly: A computer’s primary user has no computer while a technician repairs the infected PC.
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Spam
Spamming is a kind of network abuse. It's the abuse of any electronic communications medium to send unsolicited messages to someone in bulk. While its definition usually extends to any unsolicited bulk electronic communication, some exclude from the definition of the term "spam" messages considered by the receiver (or even just the sender) to be targeted, non-commercial, or wanted. In the popular eye, the most common form of spam is that delivered in e-mail as a form of commercial advertising. However, over the short history of electronic media, people have spammed for many purposes other than the commercial, and in many media other than e-mail. Spammers have developed a variety of spamming techniques, which vary by media: e-mail spam, instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engines spam, weblogs spam, and mobile phone messaging spam.
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This is an Outlook inbox filled with spam... CYTEXONE Protect can put an end to this immediately.
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 Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have effectively no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists. Because the barrier to entry is so low, the volume of unsolicited mail has produced other costs, which are borne by the public (in terms of lost productivity and fraud) and by Internet service providers, which must add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in a number of jurisdictions.
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Phishing
 Pronounced "fishing," it is a scam to steal valuable information such as credit card and social security numbers, user IDs and passwords. Also known as "brand spoofing," an official-looking e-mail is sent to potential victims pretending to be from their ISP, bank or retail establishment. E-mails can be sent to people on selected lists or on any list, expecting that some percentage of recipients will actually have an account with the real organization.
E-Mail Is the "Bait"
The e-mail states that due to internal accounting errors or some other pretext, certain information must be updated to continue your service. A link in the message directs the user to a Web page that asks for financial information. The page looks genuine, because it is easy to fake a valid Web site. Any HTML page on the Web can be copied and modified to suit the phishing scheme.
Anyone Can Phish
A "phishing kit" is a set of software tools that help the novice phisher imitate a target Web site and make mass mailings. It may even include lists of e-mail addresses. How thoughtful of people to create these kits!
The "Spear" Phishing Variant
Spear phishing is more targeted and personal. The e-mail supposedly comes from someone in the organization everyone knows such as the head of human resources. It could also come from someone not known by name, but with a title of authority such as a LAN administrator. Once one employee falls for the scheme and divulges sensitive information, it can be used to gain access to more of the company's resources.
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Directory Harvest Attack
 A Directory Harvest attack is a method spammers use to obtain valid e-mail addresses. Random names are generated and sent out to valid domains. If an undeliverable message does not return, the name is assumed to be genuine. Random names are easy to generate from any electronic phone book because many organizations standardize on conventions such as first name letter and last name or first name and last name letter; for example, John Doe could be jdoe@xyz.com or johnd@xyz.com.
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Pharming
Similar in nature to phishing, pharming attempts to obtain personal or private information through domain spoofing. Rather than using messages that deliver URLs to fake websites, pharming 'poisons' a DNS server, resulting in a browser request being redirected to the fake website.
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Spim
Spam over Instant Messaging.
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 Worm
A program or algorithm that replicates itself over a computer network and usually performs malicious activities, such as using up the computer's resources and possibly shutting the system down.
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