Security firm McAfee is warning the spyware and adware are increasing at an exponential rate. According to a report released yesterday, between the years of 2000 and 2002 there were only 40 spyware families. Since 2002 that number has increased to over 450 families. McAfee is saying that this is because most people can’t tell the difference between safe and unsafe sites. Most people probably believe that pornographic sites contain the most spyware. This is untrue. Star and celebrity sites are the most dangerous with over 16% of the data containing spyware. Screensaver sites are second at 11.5% and then pornography at 11.4%.

According to data from Security Company Webroot, adware still continues to be a burden to home computer users throughout the second quarter of 2006. Spyware scans from webroot show an infection rate of 59 percent. This is the same as the first quarter but is up 14 percent from the end of 2005. The steady infection rate is another indication that home computer users are not using the best anti-spyware tool.

Just when you think that companies would learn, along comes MediaPipe and a lawsuit from Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna filed against Digital Enterprises. The Attorney General claims in his lawsuit that Digital Enterprises is using an “aggressive, relentless and threatening” form of online bill collection. The Federal Trade Commission is claiming that most people who complained to them “claim they never signed up for the ‘free trial’ and have never heard of Movieland’s services until the popups started appearing on their machine demanding payment for services.

MediaPipe according to Webroot Spy Sweeper appears to be an adware based program that delivers popup advertisements to a user’s machine. Spy Sweeper does identify this program in their threat definitions file and can remove it from your computer. Users who have MediaPipe on their machine can use Webroot Spy Sweeper to remove it from their computer.

Users who were infected by MediaPipe were so annoyed have actually been paying the $29.95 charge to use the service, or have been paying computer technicians to remove it from their computer. Save you money and put it into Spy Sweeper to protect and remove MediaPipe as well as other forms of adware that exist now or will come in the future.

It has become public that the deckoutyourdeck.com ad displayed through the MySpace banner ads program on their website actually installed adware on users machines after a person clicked on the ad. 

DeckoutYourDeck.com was exploiting a flaw in Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer.  Once you clicked on the ad, a trojan horse by the name of exp.wmf would be installed on your computer.  Once that is running it then would silently install adware programs such as purityscan which would then display popup ads and also track internet activity on the infected users computer.

Back in December of 2005, Microsoft had released a security patch to protect users from this type of exploit.  This is just another example of why is it so so so important to make sure you keep up to date with system patches from Microsoft.

Myspace is currently in the process of eliminating these ads from appearing in their network. 

This brings up an interesting point about the fact that many websites on the internet use adnetworks to supplement their costs of running their website or even to make a profit.  Many of these people have no idea of the ads that are going to be displayed on their site.  This is going to force them to take a closer look at the network that they are using to make sure they are using legitamate networks.

WinAntiSpyware is a system maintenance and security application that has been seen to install without consent and load at windows startup. It may be mistaken as an antispyware program but it is infact adware. It should be deleted unless purposely installed. 

WinAd is an adware program which periodically connects to a Web server to download and display pop-up advertisements. When executed, WinAd variants modify the registry so that they can execute at each Windows start. These modifications differ depending on the variant.  

PurityScan is an adware program that downloads and displays  popup advertisements on a computer. The adware program is also rumored to be linked as an even more malicious trojan downloader.

DirectRevenue aka ABetterInternet is an adware program that may display pop-up advertisements on your computer. This program has been listed by AOL and Netscape as a trustworthy program although it is malicious. 

WhenU SaveNow is a consumer utility that delivers relevant advertisements based on the web content that interests you. This utility checks on the type of things that you look at on the internet and sends you relative advertisements based on that. 

GAIN Common Components are the advertising software components from the GAIN Advertising Network. These components have grown recently as adware. They are currently the fifth biggest adware risk in the world and the seventh in the United States. 

Hotbar adds graphical skins to Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, and Outlook Express toolbars and also adds its own toolbar and search button. These custom toolbars have keyword-targeted advertisements built into them. Hotbar comes in two versions, a free version, and a paid version. The paid version does not include any adware but the free version displays pop-up advertisements.

180 Search Assistant is an adware program that delivers advertisements to your PC from sponsoring websites. It also directs the computer user to the sponsors websites. This adware is the top adware threat in the United States and the third highest in the world.

Security2K Hijacker is a browser helper object that may hijack the homepage to a fake security site. This adware is ranked as the second highest threat in the world and the third highest in the United States. 

Popuper is an adware program that delivers targeted pop-up advertisements to a users computer and can hijack the users home page and web searches. The file is not a Windows system file. The file is an unknown file in the Windows folder. Popuper.exe is able to hide itself, monitor applications, and manipulate other programs. This file is the top worldwide adware threat.