Spy Stoppers Fight Back
With spyware now a top IT security concern, organizations are finally starting to rein in the unwanted software. Here's how.
By Robert L. Mitchell
October 31, 2005 12:00 PM ET
Computerworld - 
Spyware used to be thought of as a consumer problem. Now it has IT's full attention, and it's no wonder: In a
Computerworld survey of subscribers with IT security responsibilities that was conducted for this story, 79% of the 577 respondents said they've had problems with spyware in the past 12 months, and 71% said they see it as a threat to their organizations. While spyware's major impact has been on the help desk because of spyware-related system reliability and performance issues, the unwanted programs are also viewed as a growing security threat -- one that 84% of respondents said is increasing.
The good news is that IT organizations are finally starting to get the kinds of tools that are needed to bring the problem under control. The evolution of centrally managed, enterprise-class antispyware tools for the desktop and the emergence of spyware-savvy gateways for the network perimeter are helping IT organizations identify and eliminate spyware programs and block new ones from infecting business PCs. Although the tools are new and still maturing, 41% of our survey respondents said they are already using enterprise-ready antispyware software.
At TelCove, the use of enterprise antispyware software has cut help desk call volumes by about 30%, says Windows server administrator Anthony Waters. The help desk at the Canonsburg, Pa.-based telecommunications company fields calls from 1,500 users in 72 offices. As spyware-related calls to the help desk skyrocketed late last year, the task of cleaning PCs with stand-alone antispyware tools and reimaging badly infected machines became overwhelming. "It was just crazy," Waters says.
Last December, Waters added McAfee Inc.'s AntiSpyware Enterprise to his antivirus software and deployed it to the desktops using McAfee's Policy Orchestrator software. Early on, the software didn't catch all spyware programs, and in some cases, programs it had supposedly removed came back. "But as we got different [updates], that part has improved," Waters says. This spring, he also upgraded all PCs to Windows XP with Service Pack 2, a move that helped eliminate several Windows and Internet Explorer vulnerabilities that spyware programs are known to exploit. Now, Waters says, spyware-related help desk calls have almost been eliminated.
One year ago, few enterprise-ready antispyware tools were available. Today, every major antivirus software vendor has an offering for the problem that Microsoft Corp. says was responsible for one out of every three Windows system crashes last year. Although the tools are still maturing,
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