What Is Spyware?

Date First Published: 3rd May 2023

Topic: Cybersecurity

Subtopic: Threats To Systems, Data & Information

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn more about what spyware is in this article.

Spyware is a type of malware that is designed to secretly monitor the victim's activity, gather information about them, and send it to a third party without their permission. Spyware often steals sensitive information, like passwords and bank details. These details can then be used to buy items in the victim's name or be sold to third parties. Spyware is a privacy violation and can lead to data breaches.

How Does Spyware Spread?

Like Trojan horses and ransomware, computers can become infected with spyware by internet downloads from malicious websites, peer to peer networks, and flash drives. Spyware can be included in a Trojan horse which is designed to look like a legitimate program, when it is actually something malicious.

Spyware is not a type of virus or worm because infected computers do not try to copy it to other computers. Instead, spyware is a type of malware that requires users to manually download and install it to become infected. It is often installed by deception techniques and vulnerabilities in web browsers and operating systems. Spyware is not self-replicating. Therefore, it is incorrect to say 'Spyware virus' or 'Spy virus'.

How Does Spyware Record Data?

Spyware often records data by logging every keystroke the user makes, which will also record usernames and passwords. Keyloggers are a type of spyware. Spyware can try to read sensitive browser information, capture cookies to gain unauthorised access to accounts, search it for saved passwords, record all the text of every page the user visits, capture web form data, and take screenshots of what the user is doing, which could be used to capture sensitive information. All of this information is then sent to a third party without the victim's permission or knowledge.

Some types of spyware can even control the webcam and a microphone to take image and video recordings. This allows a third party to spy on the victim and possibly obtain embarrassing images and videos, which could result in terrible consequences. This is the reason why some users cover their webcam or unplug it when they are not using it.

Detection

Spyware is designed to remain undetected and silently run in the background, whilst capturing information about the victim, so it does not usually harm any files or applications. Usually, the only way you would find out if your computer was infected with spyware is if you noticed unauthorised use of your accounts or if it was detected by your antivirus. As long as it is up to date, antivirus software can detect and remove most types of spyware.

However, some types of spyware can heavily consume computing resources, like the CPU and the RAM, and create unwanted network traffic. It can also cause great stability issues, like applications freezing, failure to boot, and system crashes. Spyware may even prevent spyware programs and firewalls from properly working to make it difficult to remove.

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