Pearl Knowledge Sharing Center - Spyware

"Stealware" and affiliate fraud
         A few spyware vendors, notably 180 Solutions, have written what the New York Times has dubbed "stealware", and what spyware-researcher Ben Edelman terms affiliate fraud, a form of click fraud. Stealware diverts the payment of affiliate marketing revenues from the legitimate affiliate to the spyware vendor.
         Spyware which attacks affiliate networks places the spyware operator's affiliate tag on the user's activity�replacing any other tag, if there is one. The spyware operator is the only party that gains from this. The user has their choices thwarted, a legitimate affiliate loses revenue, Networks' reputations are injured, and vendors are harmed by having to pay out affiliate revenues to an "affiliate" who is not party to a contract. Affiliate fraud is a violation of the terms of service of most affiliate marketing networks. As a result, spyware operators such as 180 Solutions have been terminated from affiliate networks including LinkShare and ShareSale.

Identity theft and fraud
         In one case, spyware has been closely associated with identity theft. In August 2005, researchers from security software firm Sunbelt Software believed that the makers of the common CoolWebSearch spyware had used it to transmit "chat sessions, user names, passwords, bank information, etc.", but it turned out that "it actually (was) its own sophisticated criminal little trojan that's independent of CWS." This case is currently under investigation by the FBI.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft, and that financial losses from identity theft totaled nearly $48 billion for businesses and financial institutions and at least $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses for individuals.
Spyware-makers may commit wire fraud with dialer program spyware. These can reset a modem to dial up a premium-rate telephone number instead of the usual ISP. Connecting to these suspicious numbers involves long-distance or overseas charges which invariably result in high charges. Dialers are ineffective on computers that do not have a modem, or are not connected to a telephone line.

Digital rights management
Some copy-protection technologies have borrowed from spyware. In 2005, Sony BMG Music Entertainment was found to be using rootkits in its XCP digital rights management technology Like spyware, not only was it difficult to detect and uninstall, it was so poorly written that most efforts to remove it could have rendered computers unable to function. Texas state attorney general Greg Abbott filed suit, and three separate class-action suits were filed. Sony BMG later provided a workaround on its website to help users remove it.
Beginning in April 25, 2006, Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications application install on most Windows PCs as a "critical security update". While the main pupose of this deliberately non-uninstallable application is making sure the copy of Windows on the machine was lawfully purchased and installed, it also installs software that has been accused of "phoning home" on a daily basis, like spyware. It can be removed with the RemoveWGA tool.
Spyware and cookies. Anti-spyware programs often report Web advertisers' HTTP cookies, the small text files that track browsing activity, as spyware. While they are not always inherently malicious, many users object to third parties using space on their personal computers for their business purposes, and so many anti-spyware programs offer to remove them.

Examples of spyware
These common spyware programs illustrate the diversity of behaviors found in these attacks. Note that as with computer viruses, researchers give names to spyware programs which may not be used by their creators. Programs may be grouped into "families" based not on shared program code, but on common behaviors, or by "following the money" of apparent financial or business connections. For instance, a number of the spyware programs distributed by Claria are collectively known as "Gator". Likewise, programs which are frequently installed together may be described as parts of the same spyware package, even if they function separately.
- CoolWebSearch, a group of programs, takes advantage of Internet Explorer vulnerabilities. The package directs traffic to advertisements on Web sites including coolwebsearch.com. It displays pop-up ads, rewrites search engine results, and alters the infected computer's hosts file to direct DNS lookups to these sites.

- Internet Optimizer, also known as DyFuCa, redirects Internet Explorer error pages to advertising. When users follow a broken link or enter an erroneous URL, they see a page of advertisements. However, because password-protected Web sites (HTTP Basic authentication) use the same mechanism as HTTP errors, Internet Optimizer makes it impossible for the user to access password-protected sites.

- Zango (formerly 180 Solutions) transmits detailed information to advertisers about the Web sites which users visit. It also alters HTTP requests for affiliate advertisements linked from a Web site, so that the advertisements make unearned profit for the 180 Solutions company. It opens pop-up ads that cover over the Web sites of competing companies.

- HuntBar, aka WinTools or Adware.Websearch, is a small family of spyware programs distributed by TrafficSyndicate. TrafficSyndicate.com is a trademark of IBIS, LLC. It is installed by an ActiveX drive-by download at affiliate Web sites, or by advertisements displayed by other spyware programs � an example of how spyware can install more spyware. These programs add toolbars to IE, track browsing behavior, redirect affiliate references, and display advertisements.

- Movieland, also known as Moviepass.tv or Popcorn.net, is a movie download service that has been the subject of thousands of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Washington State Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau, and others by consumers claiming they were held hostage by its repeated pop-up windows and demands for payment. The FTC has filed a complaint against Movieland.com and eleven other defendants (list), charging them with having "engaged in a nationwide scheme to use deception and coercion to extract payments from consumers." The complaint alleges that the software repeatedly opened oversized pop-up windows that could not be closed or minimized, accompanied by music that lasted nearly a minute, demanding payment of at least $29.95 to end the pop-up cycle; and claiming that consumers had signed up for a three-day free trial but did not cancel their membership before the trial period was over, and were thus obligated to pay.