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Malicious Software Can Hurt Your PC

By Anne Colllier
reposted from NetFamilyNews

Casually clicking around the Web “can be a dangerous business” these days, because of the malicious stuff you (or your child) can download just by arriving at some Web pages, CNET reports. By malicious stuff, I mean software that can affect a PC, your identity, or your wallet, not harm a child – e.g., trojan software that can take control of the family PC, keylogger code that grabs passwords or credit card numbers, or nasty spyware that’s tough to get rid of. So CNET’s reviewers “looked at five standalone safe-surfing tools and compared them with the native protection within Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7.” They’re all quite different, some identifying and blocking phishing sites, others identifying and blocking legitimate sites containing bad downloads. Most did a better job than the protection in browsers. Check out CNET’s at-a-glance chart.

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