Protecting Against Spyware In Vista Part II

By simply visiting a Web site, or installing shareware, your users may be installing other software, cookies, or applications that are able to monitor and log Internet activity. This category of software is generally referred to as spyware.

Spyware is almost as undesirable as viruses because it can monitor our actions on the Internet. Some companies have been known to use spyware to gather data about customers. Even though it is not illegal, the spyware running on your computer may be tracking and sending data from your computer to another server on the Internet. Vista includes its own spyware protection tool called Windows Defender

Windows Defender is a spyware scanning application that looks for potential threats, shuts them down, and alerts you when applications engage in suspicious activities. Windows Defender is configured (through the Security Center) to scan your computer every day at 2:00 AM. This schedule should be changed if the scan cannot be performed at this time.

You should enable the Check for updated definitions before scanning option. This is your best bet for ensuring the software is up-to-date with the latest definitions. Otherwise you must be diligent enough to manually check for updates on a regular basis.

Note: Windows Defender should be used in conjunction with third party anti-virus software.

There are several settings within the Local Computer Policy for controlling how Windows Defender behaves. The settings you configure will be specific to your requirements of your computing environment.

For example, if WSUS is used to deploy updates to Windows Defender, you should consider enabling the Turn on definition updates through both WSUS and Windows Update. In the event that the WSUS server in your environment is unavailable, Vista will use Windows Update to check for new definitions.