Stealthware: Learn all about usage, detection

For centuries, as locksmiths continued to make better locks, others pursued devising ways to pick them. It was only a short time before this ongoing “lock and key” syndrome made its way to the world of personal computers.

My introduction to this vicious cycle was discovering I could no longer make copies of the programs I purchased. Copy protection was seen by software publishers as a way of protecting their intellectual property and an infringement to one’s freedom of choice by most everyone else. It didn’t take long for utility programs to appear that would break the copy protection.

Of course, the industry responded with more sophisticated copy protection schemes only to have them defeated by improved copy utilities, and so the cycle went.

Another common example of lock and key is the virus/antivirus cycle where new computer viruses appear while continuously updated antivirus programs combat the latest strains that try and bypass the antivirus programs’ detection methods.

Now it looks like yet another lock and key has made it to the computing arena.

“Stealthware” is a class of program that is installed on an unsuspecting user’s computer. The installer can then surreptitiously keep track of everything that transpires on that computer. Stealthware was originally designed for parents who wanted to keep track of their children’s online activities. Stealthware lets parents monitor what transpires in chat rooms, see where their offspring hang out on the Internet and read any e-mail or documents their kids type.

Today’s stealthware programs, such as Spector Pro from SpectorSoft, can even send e-mail to alert parents that a transgression has occurred. Turns out that these programs worked so well that parents started using them on each other, with wives spying on husbands and vice versa. It’s nasty, but effective. And although you may not get them to admit it, there are lots of employers using stealthware to monitor employees.

Even more alarming is stealthware being used by unscrupulous individuals who want to not only see what you are doing and where you’re going but to also steal your financial data, credit-card information, passwords and any other sensitive data you may be recording into your computer.

So of course, it didn’t take long for someone to make a program that detects stealthware. SpyCop Cloak can detect hundreds of varieties of stealthware, and that number continues to grow. And just like an antivirus program that must be regularly updated with latest virus definitions, SpyCop Cloak has the ability to be updated online by downloading the latest stealthware definitions. And so the lock and key once again goes on and on.

Currently, Spector ($99.95) is available for both Windows and Mac. SpyCop ($29.95) is available only for Windows. In my opinion, both of these programs should be in your arsenal of computing utilities.

For more information about these products, go to www.spectorsoft.com or www.spycop.com.

Craig Crossman is a national newspaper columnist writing about computers and technology. He also hosts the No. 1 daily national computer radio talk show, “Computer America,” heard on Business TalkRadio — Monday through Friday, 10 p.m.-midnight. For more information, visit his website at www.computeramerica.com.

2011, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services