Spyware no longer a growing menace

Spyware is still a menace but the number of these invasive applications has levelled off over the last three months.

From January through September of this year, 83.4 million instances of spyware - or 26 per PC - were discovered by software maker Webroot and ISP EarthLink

While the amount of spyware doubled from the first to second quarter of 2004, the third-quarter figures remained just about flat, according to Webroot and EarthLink.

Looking at the different types of spyware, the number of Trojan horses, adware cookies and adware fell from the second to third quarter. Only system monitoring programs were up slightly over the last three months.

Adware cookies remain the most common sort of spyware, making up about 78 per cent of all instances discovered by Webroot and EarthLink so far this year. Adware cookies are files stored on your computer when you visit websites that contain personal information used to target advertisements.

Adware itself - software that serves advertisements when you run certain programs - comes in second with 20 per cent. The least common varieties, Trojans and system monitors, make up about one per cent each.

Webroot MD UK Nick Lewis credits the constraint of these menaces to increased consumer awareness and greater use of anti-spyware tools.

Legislators are also going after the problem. In the past week, the US Federal Trade Commission asked a court to shut down a spyware purveyor in New Hampshire and the US House of Representatives passed two anti-spyware bills. In addition several US states, including California, have recently enacted legislation to protect consumers from malicious software that attempts to hijack PCs.