McAfee reports on Adware and Spyware growth

The paper, which highlights the financial incentives fueling the rise of adware and spyware, the prevalence of adware and spyware, and culprits behind the problem, is available at: http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp.

McAfee research shows that adware and spyware distributors abuse the affiliate marketing programs of legitimate companies. In addition, adware distributors use front companies and Web sites to reach unsuspecting users and intermediaries, meaning that legitimate sites are finding themselves tied to known spyware distributors. Programs then install themselves on a user's machine, often as the trade-off for a piece of "free" software, and are used to collect marketing data and distribute targeted advertising.

Key research findings from the paper include:

• Celebrities are a big attraction. The most prolific distributors of adware are star/celebrity Web sites - according to McAfee SiteAdvisor™.

• The prevalence of adware and spyware is increasing at an exponential rate. By May 2006, there were more than 700 adware families with more than 6,000 variants.

• A recent survey by McAfee SiteAdvisor found that 97% of Internet users could not differentiate safe from unsafe sites, meaning that the majority of users are just one click away from downloading potentially unwanted programs.

"The emergence of lucrative online affiliate-marketing business models and the widespread ease with which adware and spyware can be spread have made them prominent features in the threat landscape," said Patrick Hayati, Regional Managing Director Middle East, McAfee, Inc. "Since 2003, when adware and spyware emerged as dominant threats in the security environment, to 2006, we have seen the number of adware families rise by 448%, demonstrating a sharp increase over the last several years."