Spyware is a very dangerous thing to encounter, especially if work efficiency drops because of it. Spyware can cause pop-up windows or even major data-breach threats. It has been estimated that spyware causes serious network downtime at more than 25% of small and mid-size businesses. This might be in particular very harmful for small business, as the time to resolve a problem caused by an infection takes on average two and a half days. It has been estimated that the cost of dealing with spyware infections amounts to thousands of dollars per year. One would think that with so many anti-spyware programs available, the threat of spyware infections is minimal. However, recent studies show otherwise. The problem is that with every new software created to fight with spyware, spyware creators get smarter. They are capable of creating malware that is very hard to defend against.
I predict that the fight between spyware creators and those who want to prevent spyware from attacking our computers will continue endlessly. That will be the case unless the government will take some action to penalize spyware creators in a stricter way. Until then, we can expect that spyware will continue to attack our computers, and we have to be skilled enough to recognize it. If you want to be protected from spyware then you should have at least two different anti-spyware programs installed on your computer. Spyware is a real threat and we should acknowledge that.
