Adware and Spyware are getting to be a problem at NMMI. Currently up to 30% of our network traffic is from Adware or Spyware. IS staff have seen cadet and Institute machines with hundreds of Spyware programs installed. The current record is over 1,000 Spyware programs on one machine.

What is Adware or Spyware and what is the difference? The main difference between Adware and Spyware is that Adware observes the habits of users in order to sell products and/or services. Spyware focuses on all computing tasks and serves the purpose of spying rather than merely observing.

The following are some excellent sources concerning this problem.

10 Tips to Stop Spyware from May 3, 2004 issue of ComputerWorld.

Spyware and Deceptive Software Published: April 16, 2004 by Microsoft.

In 2008 NMMI installed LightSpeed Systems Total Traffic Control to assist with blocking Adware and Spyware.

The Lightspeed security agent is an all in one virus and spyware scanner. It does offer active real time protection via the Security Agent (SA) alerter. If a suspect file enters the computer, the SA alerter will notify and block the offending file.

The Security Agent was implemented over the summer and will replace Symantec Anti-virus as well as Windows Defender. All users will notice the Security Agent icon in the system tray of their computer. Scans and updates are automatically set to run weekly after hours in order to avoid conflicting with classes.

For more information on LightSpeed Total Traffic Control please click here