Some interesting questions - this is something that I don't think many within the community really know the answer to. Never the less, here's what I've come up with.
1/The distinction between spyware, adware, and trojans are that they all conduct slightly different behaviour and carry out differing tasks. For example a piece of spyware is often designed to gather data on a web surfers behaviour, a trojan is designed to allow remote access to a remote user who then can carry out commands he/she normally couldn't, and adware advertises a product/website somehow on an infected machine without the express permission of the owner, and continues to do so over a period of time - often attempts to remove adware manually prove to be unsuccessful.
Hamish Stanaway
-= KoRe WoRkS =- Internet Security
Owner/Operator
http://www.koreworks.com/
New Zealand
Is your box REALLY secure?
From: "Carere, Courtney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Adware, spyware, and trojans
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 11:48:57 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0
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Upon reading "The Art of Deception" by Kevin Mitnick yesterday (an
excellent book, by the way), he writes that most antivirus software
does not detect spyware, which was a shock to me. Spyware seems to
be defined as software that logs keystrokes, screenshots, user
actions, etc. I have a couple of questions:
1. What's the distinction between spyware, adware, and trojan
software? (My antivirus software says it protects against Trojans,
and I've seen programs like SubSeven in its log files.)
2. Is there any good software that detects and removes spyware,
ideally controlled and updated continuously from a central server?
Thanks!
- - Courtney Carere
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