The first ever recorded use of the term spyware was on October 16, 1995, it was used in a Usenet post that was making fun of Microsoft’s business model. The term spyware was noted to mean hardware that was used to steal information. It was not a real popular term until the year 2000 when the founder of the Zone Lab, Gregor Freund has actually used the phrase in a press release for the Zone Alarm Personal Firewall. Ever since then the word has become a popular term in the computer world.
In 2001, Steve Gibson of the Gibson Research has come to understand that advertising software had been pre installed onto his system. But he soon suspected that it was stealing his information. After carefully inspecting he found it was adware from the company called Aurate and Conducent. Gibson then went on to develop an anti spyware software.
In 2004, a study was conducted by AOL and the National Cyber-Security Alliance found that about 80% of the user’s computers had some form of spyware and it had about an average of 93 spyware components per computer. About 90% of the computer’s users did not know they had the spyware in their computer and about 95% reported that did not give permission for the spyware to be installed.
In 2006, spyware has become a preeminent security threats to computer systems that are running Microsoft Windows Operating System. It is estimated that 9 out of 10 computers are infected with spyware. It is note worthy to mention that any computer that is hooked up to Internet Explorer are more venerable for infection.
