Ask The Wizard (Virus vs. spyware**)

Dear Wizard of 'OZ',

I was wondering what the difference is between Spyware and Viruses?

Signed,

Confused

Dear Confused,

Many people use the term spyware and virus interchangeably, as if it were the same thing? But when you look at the 'who,' the 'why,' the 'what,' the 'how' and the legal status of these two things, you see they're quite different.

Let's start with the 'who.' Who writes a virus? Well, usually it's one person, maybe two people, but usually it's one person sitting alone in a basement or an apartment trying to prove something. Who writes spyware? Well, you'd be surprised. It's often a whole team of people because spyware is often written by companies that operate out in the open and don't think they're doing anything wrong.

Which gets to the 'why.' Why do people write viruses? Mostly, they're trying to brag, trying to draw attention to themselves, to boast about their skills, or to show the vulnerabilities of a software program they don't like. But why do people write spyware? It's for money. They think that there's money in this, for marketing, or to sell things or to get information that they can turn into dollars. It's much more driven by the financial reward that they're hoping to get.

And 'what' are the questions about a virus. Well, no, people usually understand what a virus is. There's this broad consensus, there's no disagreement. But you know what, when it comes to what constitutes spyware, there's a big disagreement as to the 'what.' People disagree. They'll say, this is spyware. Other people say, no, it's not, it's just a feature of the browser. So there's a big difference here.

What about the 'how'? How is a virus spread? Well, the preferred method is e-mail, but how is spyware spread? That usually happens through a browser. So, even the way it is spread and promulgated is quite different and then finally the legal status. This is pretty much settled. There were disputes about what constitutes a law-breaking and what the jurisdictions were. But for the most part, people understand that laws are broken when you write a virus that invade someone's system and damages their information. Over here, it's still chaos. In some places, spyware is obviously against the law, their statutes, they forbid its use; in other places, you can actually point to a company or an individual that has written spyware and yet you can't find a crime on the book, the statute that you can prosecute them for.

So, if you look at the legal status, the 'how,' the 'what,' the 'why' and the 'who,' you see that viruses and spyware are quite different.**
Hope this helps.

Yrs,

The Wizard

** Bob Artner, VP, TechRepublic
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