Spyware found in Sears online community installation
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A service promising an online community delivers online tracking instead, say security experts.
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The Federal Trade Commission is going after spyware, bits of computer code that install themselves on the computers of Internet users to track or disrupt their online activities.
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The Federal Trade Commission won an important victory last week in its fight to protect consumers from spyware, the software that tracks unsuspecting Web surfers, bombards them with advertisements and sometimes even steal login information and passwords.
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Sears Holdings is facing a class-action lawsuit after&#160;making the purchase history of its customers public&#160;on its Managemyhome.com Web site.The lawsuit seeks damages as well as an accounting by Sears to determine whether the Web site was misused by criminals. It was filed on Friday by New Jersey resident Christine Desantis, who is represented by KamberEdelson, a technology law firm. KamberEdelson is best known for its recent settlement with social networking site Facebook over its sending of unwanted text messages to recycled cell-phone numbers.&quot;It&#39;s a pretty simple case,&quot; said Jay Edelson, a partner with the Chicago-based law firm. &quot;Sears decided to put private information of its customers up on the Web site and make it publicly available. They did it without telling their customers that it was going to happen ... and they really did it for their own financial reasons.&quot;Manage My Home is a community portal where Sears shoppers can download product manuals, find product tips and get home renovation ideas. The Web site had a feature called &quot;Find your products&quot; that ostensibly was designed to help users look up past purchases.Last Thursday, researchers at security vendor CA pointed out that the feature could be used to look up the purchase history of any Sears customer, an apparent violation of the company&#39;s privacy policy.Manage My Home could easily have been misused by criminals, Edelson said. For example, a robber could gain access to a victim&#39;s home by posing as a Sears repair person, using the information available on the site. That could be incredibly scary, he said. &quot;They have a duty to keep that information away from the public.&quot;Sears disabled the &quot;Find your products&quot; feature&#160;on Friday, saying it would re-introduce the feature once the company figures out a way of ensuring that the information cannot be viewed by unauthorized third parties.However, the retailer was informed of the problem weeks before it took the feature off-line, Edelson said.In late December, CA researchers also criticized Sears for&#160;downloading invasive comScore Web tracking software&#160;onto the desktops of some members of its MySHCcommunity.com Web site without adequate disclosure.KamberEdelson is also investigating that matter, Edelson said.&#160;
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Netcraft has released an Internet Explorer plug-in that could help people avoid becoming victims of online fraud. The Internet security company heralded the plug-in toolbar, which displays information about
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For millions of PC users, the privacy-snatching programs known as spyware have been nothing but a headache as they swipe personal information, slow systems to a crawl and crash computers.
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Weâve all been hearing a lotÂ  lately about spyware, those nasty little apps that secret themselves onto your computer, hog resources, change your default settings, and maybe even steal personal information and send it to third parties. Despite all the talk, spyware still isnât getting the attention it deserves in the enterprise.
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Update to free browser will warn people if a Web site looks like a phishing scam, its maker says.
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Online crooks are constantly switching tactics in an attempt to invade your PC. Be on guard for these latest sneaky tricks.
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Google's search appliances could expose Web sites that use the products to information-stealing phishing attacks.
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A survey conducted by internet service provider America Online (AOL) found that 20% of home computers were infected by a virus or worm, and that various forms of snooping programs such as spyware and adware are on 80% of systems.
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How spyware, a program that creeps onto a computerÂs hard drive unannounced, is wrecking the Internet.
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A prominent Internet safety organization and leading computer-maker Dell Inc. launched a campaign Friday to help consumers fend off "spyware," software that can cause sluggish computer performance or popup ads and secretly monitor the activities of Internet users.
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With concerns about spyware rapidly mounting, Blue Coat Systems is introducing a proxy appliance to combat the problem.
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EarthLink, which was the first ISP to provide free anti-spyware tools for its members, has updated its anti-spyware offering with an enhancement that provides real-time software scanning
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When technicians examined the PCs of 329 respondents, they found 80 percent loaded with dozens of spyware programs that track the user&#39;s browsing habits.
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Workshop Windows virus cleanup primer