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Adware and Spyware anti virus

Kaspersky® Internet Security 7.0
Complete protection combining the antivirus module in Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 with a built-in personal firewall and antispam filter. Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0 provides protection from viruses, spyware, spam and privacy threats. Now with Parental and Privacy Control!

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Kaspersky® Anti-Virus 7.0
Award-winning antivirus software which protects your PC from viruses, Trojans, spyware, rootkits and other malicious programs. Reactive detection methods are combined with proactive technologies to provide balanced and effective security, while automatic updates ensure uninterrupted protection and peace of mind.

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Types of Threats

There are a vast number of threats to computer security today. This section will review the threats that are blocked by Kaspersky Anti-Virus.

Worms

This category of malicious programs spreads itself largely by exploiting vulnerabilities in computer operating systems. The class was named for the way that worms crawl from computer to computer, using networks and email. This feature allows worms to spread themselves very rapidly. Worms penetrate a computer, search for the network addresses of other computers, and send a burst of self-made copies to these addresses. In addition, worms often utilize data from email client address books. Some of these malicious programs occasionally create working files on system disks, but they can run without any system resources except RAM.

Viruses

Viruses are programs which infect other files, adding their own code to them to gain control of the infected files when they are opened. This
simple definition explains the fundamental action performed by a virus – infection.

Trojans

Trojans are programs which carry out unauthorized actions on computers, such as deleting information on drives, making the system hang, stealing confidential information, and so on. This class of malicious program is not a virus in the traditional sense of the word, because it does not infect other computers or data. Trojans cannot break into computers on their own and are spread by hackers, who disguise them as regular software. The damage that they inflict can greatly exceed that done by traditional virus attacks.

Recently, worms have been the commonest type of malicious program damaging computer data, followed by viruses and Trojans. Some malicious programs combine features of two or even three of these classes.

Adware

Adware comprises programs which are included in software, unknown to the user, which is designed to display advertisements. Adware is usually built into software that is distributed free. The advertisement is situated in the program interface. These programs also frequently collect personal data on the user and send it back to their developer, change browser settings (start page and search pages, security levels, etc.) and create traffic that the user cannot control. This can lead to a security breach and to direct financial losses.

Spyware

This software collects information about a particular user or organization without their knowledge. Spyware often escapes detection entirely. In general, the goal of spyware is to: • trace user actions on a computer; • gather information on the contents of your hard drive; in such cases, this usually involves scanning several directories and the system registry to compile a list of software installed on the computer; • gather information on the quality of the connection, bandwidth, modem speed, etc.

Riskware

Potentially dangerous applications include software that has no malicious features but could form part of the development environment for malicious programs or could be used by hackers as auxiliary components for malicious programs. This program category includes programs with backdoors and vulnerabilities, as well as some remote administration utilities, keyboard layout togglers, IRC clients, FTP servers, and allpurpose utilities for stopping processes or hiding their operation.

Another type of malicious program that is similar to adware, spyware, and riskware are programs that plug into your web browser and redirect traffic. The web browser will open different web sites than those intended.

Jokes

Software that does not cause a host any direct harm but displays messages that such harm has already been caused or will result under certain conditions. These programs often warn the user of non-existent dangers, such as messages that warn of formatting the hard drive (although no formatting actually takes place) or detecting viruses in uninfected files.

Rootkits

These are utilities which are used to conceal malicious activity. They mask malicious programs to keep anti-virus programs from detecting them. Rootkits modify basic functions of the computer’s operating system to hide both their own existence and actions that the hacker undertakes on the infected computer.

Other dangerous programs

These are programs created to, for instance, set up denial of service (DoS) attacks on remote servers, hack into other computers, and programs that are part of the development environment for malicious programs. These programs include hack tools, virus builders, vulnerability scanners, password-cracking programs, and other types of programs for cracking network resources or penetrating a system.

Hacker attacks

Hacker attacks can be initiated either by hackers or by malicious programs. They are aimed at stealing information from a remote computer, causing the system to malfunction, or gaining full control of the system's resources.

Some types of online scams

Phishing is an online scam that uses mass emailings to steal confidential information from the user, generally of a financial nature. Phishing emails are designed to maximally resemble informative emails from banks and well-known companies. These emails contain links to fake websites created by hackers to mimic the site of the legitimate organization. On this site, the user is asked to enter, for example, his credit card number and other confidential information.

Dialers to pay-per-use websites – type of online scam using unauthorized use of pay-per-use Internet services, which are commonly pornographic web sites. The dialers installed by hackers initiate modem connections from your computer to the number for the pay service. These phone numbers often have very high rates and the user is forced to pay enormous telephone bills.

Intrusive advertising

This includes popup windows and banner ads that open when using your web browser. The information in these windows is generally not of benefit to the user. Popup windows and banner ads distract the user from the task and take up bandwidth.

Spam

Spam is anonymous junk email, and includes several different types of content: adverts; political messages; requests for assistance; emails that ask one to invest large amounts of money or to get involved in pyramid schemes; emails aimed at stealing passwords and credit card numbers, and emails that ask to be sent to friends (chain letters). Spam significantly increases the load on mail servers and the risk of loosing important data. Kaspersky Anti-Virus uses two methods for detecting and blocking these threat types: • Reactive: it is a method designed to search for malicious objects using continuously updating application databases. This method requires at least one instance of infection to add the threat signature to the databases and to distribute a database update. • Proactive – in contrast to reactive protection, this method is based not on analyzing the object’s code but on analyzing its behavior in the system. This method is aimed at detecting new threats that are still not defined in the signatures.

By employing both methods, Kaspersky Anti-Virus provides comprehensive protection for your computer from both known and new threats.

Warning: From this point forward, we will use the term "virus" to refer to malicious and dangerous programs. The type of malicious programs will only be emphasized where necessary.