Internet Explorer : a Super Spyware Spreader |
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| Author:
| ranok
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| Submitted: |
03-Sep-2004 13:01:01 |
| Imported From: |
zZine (original author: Ranok)
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| This article covers the dangers and security holes found in Microsoft IE and how this allows for spyware to be downloaded when surfing the web. It gives you two suggestions for stopping this problem, by switching to Mozilla (Fire Fox) and configuring Spybot S&D to stop spyware dowloads realtime.
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You may know that free software is riddled with spyware, or small programs that dial home to advertising companies reporting your web browsing history. A basic spyware scanner such as Lavasoft Adware or Spybot S&D can search your computer for such files and remove them, much like a virus scanner does with viruses.
What you may not know, is that it is possible for crackers and advertisers to put code that will monitor your web browsing history in websites, without you downloading any files. There are many types of scripts that are run when you go to a website that can be dangerous to your computer, viruses, spyware, etc.
The most common of these scripts are called VBscript, a subset of the Visual Basic computer language, and ActiveX, a Microsoft web language that allows the website a startling amount of access to your computer. Internet Explorer by default downloads and runs these scripts, which may just show a funky graphic or download a virus or spyware program onto your computer. An alternate web browser such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox and Opera can be downloaded with provide higher security against web scripts.
It is also possible to download a special spyware blocker that will stop spyware downloads in real-time. This means that when you computer is secretly downloading spyware, the spyware scanner will disallow the download to happen. It is possible to configure Spybot to do this with the immunize function. I would recommend switching to Mozilla Firefox (free from Mozilla ) and configuring Spybot S&D to run as a real-time spyware blocker (also free).
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
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