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Most Larger Companies Contaminated with Spyware
SAN DIEGO -- Fully 92% of information technology managers believe their organizations have been infected with spyware, a rogue technology that can secretly collect Web surfing patterns, keystrokes and password information to send back to a host Web site, with or without the user's knowledge, according to a survey by Websense Inc. IT managers also reported that an average of 29% of their corporate PCs have been infected with spyware.Only 6% of employees, however, said they have ever visited any Web sites at work that contain spyware.According to Websense's fifth annual Web@Work survey conducted by Harris Interactive, there is a major discrepancy between employees' knowledge and understanding of spyware versus IT management findings on the number of corporate workstations that are actually infected. For example, one-third of employees either do not believe, or are unsure, that their computers could be infected with spyware. However, IT management reported that spyware was on the rise -- of those that acknowledged they had a spyware infection, 40% believe that the number of spyware-infected workstations at their organization has increased.One of the most common ways for an employee to download spyware is by using a peer-to-peer file sharing application such as KaZaa or Morpheus. Many P2P users do not realize that by downloading a seemingly harmless mp3 file, it may be accompanied by a spyware application. By connecting users directly to each other to download or swap files, P2P networks bypass normal security barriers and can be easily exploited by hackers to spread spyware."Employees are typically exposed to spyware as a parasitic program that is attached to something useful they've intentionally downloaded from the Internet, or been tricked into downloading, or it is surreptitiously loaded by a malicious hacker," says Peter Firstbrook, program manager at META Group. "Most employees don't even know they are infected; however, spyware can be merely a nuisance, clogging the network with advertising traffic or pestering the user with pop up ads; or it can be an invasion of privacy and collect what sites they've been browsing on; or less often, a security threat that records keystrokes or screenshots that reveal confidential corporate information and potentially create backdoors by revealing passwords and user names.""One of the largest challenges associated with spyware for organizations is actually identifying the type and potential impact of the spyware," says Curt Staker, president of Websense.Websense Inc. is a worldwide provider of employee Internet management products and services, including programs that protect against spyware.Visit Websense Inc.: www.websense.com"