IF.... 

• You don’t want to get a new toolbar every other day.
• You don’t want to have your browser’s start page to get hijacked and link to some shady sites,
• You want your normal good old search page instead of some obscure search engine where you can’t find anything anyway.
• You want your computer to run fast – hey, you paid a lot of money for it and want the latest technology to really work for you, not for somebody else.
• You don’t want your connection to the Internet to get clogged, sites opening slowly, downloads taking years to complete – because some other program uses your Internet connection for it’s own needs!
• You don’t want your modem or cable box lights to blink like crazy even when you are not doing anything.
• And you certainly don’t want your PC to start calling all by itself to some strange phone numbers so you end up getting a huge phone bill...

The above problems are pretty widespread these days – I guess most people who use the Internet encounter some, or most of them. But the truth is - this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are things that are much more dangerous than a simple start page hijacking.

You have probably heard the term 'spyware'. There are a lot of different programs that fall into this category, for example, keyloggers. Many people don’t even know they exist, but the thing is, they do, they are out there and they are dangerous.

Look at it this way: keyloggers record all the keystrokes you make, and then send the log file to their owners. Every day you type in your credit card info, social security number, address, name, passwords to web sites and services.

All this information can be easily intercepted and delivered to the owner or this little program – this is how your personal information can be stolen.

Do you think that this is something that can happen to that 'other guy', not you? The truth is – you don’t even have to visit any 'strange' or 'shady' web sites to get your computer infected. It can happen to anyone, virtually anywhere.

In my work for IT security companies, I have been dealing a lot with 'trojans' and 'keyloggers', but I never thought they could hit close to me. A good friend of mine once discovered that someone had transferred $5000 from his bank account. He was never able to get that money back...

Somewhere, on some web site he got infected with a keylogger, which intercepted the passwords for accessing his online bank account details, and sent the result to some criminal. The rest - getting in and stealing money - was a piece of cake...

Actually, it happens all around us, every day. The scale of the problem is really amazing! It is not just one or ten people, or even hundred. See for yourself. According to Identity Theft Survey Report by Federal Trade Commission for 2004,

• 'almost 10 million Americans have discovered that they were the victim of some form of ID Theft within the last year'
• 'loss to businesses, including financial institutions, from ID Theft was $33 billion in 2003.'
• 'On average, victims reported that they spent 30 hours resolving their problems. This suggests that Americans spent almost 300 million hours resolving problems related to ID Theft in 2003'
• 'Average loss reported by victim of Identity Theft in 2003, was $10.500' – can you imagine that?

We all hope this will never happen to us. But, let’s face it – it can, to you and me, in fact - anyone... If you are getting infected with ad-ware, if your browser’s start page gets hijacked all the time, if someone messes with your bookmarks, if you have new toolbars in your browser all the time – you can easily get infected with many more nasty things.