SpyWare creates explosive new market opportunities
6 December, 2004

From a minor annoyance for home-PC users to a major plight on enterprise environments around the world, SpyWare (also known as AdWare, MalWare, ScumWare, and a host of other sordid names) is infecting millions of computers with multiple purposes: stealing personal information, enabling identity theft, tracking users' online activity, and selling the information back to anyone willing to pay.

According to new research from IDC, the need to identify and eradicate these parasitic programs will drive AntiSpyWare software revenues from $12 million in 2003 to $305 million in 2008. Although not always malicious in nature, SpyWare still causes significant damage to legitimate software, network performance, and employee productivity. Moreover, it crosses the boundary between security and system management by deluging Help Desks with a siege of employee complaints about pop-up advertisements, applications failures, and poor PC performance.

At worst, SpyWare's ability to track keystrokes, scan hard drives, and change system and registry settings is a tremendous personal and enterprise security threat. These activities can lead to identity theft, data corruption, and even theft of company trade secrets. Additional information can be found at www.idc.com

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