SpyWare - Detection

Along with an awareness of the variety of types of spyware products, users need to be able to recognize the computer symptoms that result from infections, as well as be familiar with the better known culprits-the hidden demons that are eavesdropping without the users' knowledge or consent. Computers that have spyware running typically exhibit any of the following symptoms:

• browser crashes
• computer instability
• high CPU utilization
• unexplained freezing
• slowness
• slow boot time
• "blue screen of death"
• illegal operation errors
• signature lines change
• pop-up/under advertisements appear when the user is online and offline
• default homepage of the browser changes