Adware and spyware advice

Spyware is a program that secretly gathers information about what you do on your computer and quite often it does this without your knowledge

• In its least dangerous forms it is known as adware and it collects information about your internet habits on behalf of companies.
• The more annoying adware can pop up adverts as you surf.

How does it work?

• In its more dangerous form, it can act like a Trojan; a particularly dangerous program that captures your passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive information as you type them.
• It will send this information to criminal gangs who will try to use it to defraud you.
• You do not have to be connected to the internet to be spied upon, but once on the internet any information gathered can be sent to the person(s)/organisation spying on you.
• Spyware removers search out these programs in the same way as anti-virus and can also block those annoying pop-up adverts.

There are many free anti-spyware programs which can be downloaded and used to scan your computer for spyware and adware. A couple of good ones are XoftSpy and Ad-aware. Links to these and to other anti-spyware scanners can be found in our Useful links section.

To learn more, visit the UK banking industry's site Bank Safe Online.