Kazaa, one of the most popular filesharing
clients, is also the biggest perpetrator of this, and the likely culprit
if your system has become infected with spyware. (Note that other products
like Morpheus, BearShare, Imesh, and Limewire do this, too, just in
case you were thinking there was a completely ???safe??? alternative.)
Web sites
It may sound like the rantings of a conspiracy theorist, but even the act of
visiting some web sites can infect your PC with spyware and adware. Not
that it can happen transparently, but many people just don??™t recognize the
red flags even when they??™re staring them in the face. Specifically, these are
the ???add-ins??? employed by some web sites that provide custom cursors,
interactive menus, or other eye candy. While loading a web page, you may
see a message asking if it??™s OK to install some ActiveX gadget ???necessary???
to view the page (e.g., Comet Cursor); here, the answer is simple: no.
Just as many viruses are written to exploit Microsoft Outlook,
most spyware and adware targets Microsoft Internet Explorer.
By switching to a browser like Firefox, you can eliminate the
threat posed by many of these nasty programs. See ???Lock
Down Internet Explorer,??? in Chapter 7, for the full story.
Network and Internet connections
Finally, your network connection (both to your LAN and to the Internet)
can serve as a conduit for a worm, the special kind of virus that doesn??™t
need your help to infect your system.
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