Morris in 1988,
was particularly devastating, mostly because of a bug in its own code. (Source: Jargon File 4.2.0.)
278 | Chapter 6: Troubleshooting
Many of these advertisements are pornographic in nature,
and will make no exceptions for the age or personal preference
of those viewing them. The good news is that this type
of attack, whether designed to change your default home
page, display pop-up ads, or glean sensitive information from
your hard disk, is easily stoppable and clearly preventable.
Aside from the ethical implications, spyware can be particularly troublesome
because it??™s so often very poorly written, and as a result, ends up
causing error messages, performance slowdowns, and seemingly random
crashing. Plus, it uses your computer??™s CPU cycles and Internet
connection bandwidth to accomplish its goals, leaving fewer resources
available for the applications you actually want to use.
Now, it??™s often difficult to tell one type of malicious program from another,
and in some ways, it doesn??™t matter. But if you understand how these programs
work??”how they get into your computer, and what they do once
they??™ve taken root??”you can eliminate them and keep them from coming back.
How malware spreads
Once they??™ve infected a system, viruses and the like can be very difficult to
remove. For that reason, your best defense against them is to prevent them
from infecting your computer in the first place.
The most useful tool you can use to keep malware off your computer is your
cerebral cortex.
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