Be Wary Of Wicked Backdoor Santas

Whenever we hear the word Santa, we often associate this with Christmas and giving. But if only this Santas were really meant to benefit us, backdoor Santas do make a list of our habits whenever we use the Internet but unfortunately not to give us gifts but more on problems. Where do these information land? While there is no specific base that they would fall into, surely it will be something that will be up to no good.

Trojans are a familiar buzz word we hear of today. It is synonymous to trouble and hence makes Trojan downloader more alarming to most. Ideally, Trojan downloaders create nothing but trouble and once they infect your computers, you will surely be going like crazy looking for a cure. They are serious threats to you computer system�s stability and if computer users are not careful, they may find themselves looking at potential general overhaul from Trojan downloaders.

We all hear of Trojans right? Well backdoor Santas are no different from them. Technically, they are like intruders that can create havoc to our computers and though they may not be considered a serious threat, no one will ever know. But you should not even wait until the threat escalates from minor to high risk. Backdoor Santas are not categorized as spyware for nothing.

Backdoor Santa will not give you any ads, or popups, nothing to indicate that it is on your computer. What then gives away its presence? Toolbars attached with your internet browser is where you should look for it. How your toolbars behave when you do internet searches or browsing is the key. Toolbars like Alexa and Hotbar are two examples of Backdoor Santa.

Backdoor Santa will collect information on which site you visited, which item you clicked, the keywords used by you, any shopping done by you. Do you really want your net activities to be scrutinized by anyone other than yourself? The result is that your search results get programmed to reflect your internet behavior.

You may not directly notice the bias in the results for every keyword you enter on search sites. But visible bias towards your reported activities will be there when you look for it.

Backdoor Santa can report about cookies stored in your computer. Cookies are small programs installed on your computer so that your regular internet activities do not take long. This should ideally be done only by your trusted sites like bank, email programs etc. Yet, every website you visit has the ability to store a cookie on your computer. You can stop this by barring storing of third party cookies.

Backdoor Santa can also be URL logger. It can report to the controller about the websites visited by you. These are stored in the folder containing temporary internet files on your computer. Regularly deleting your temp folder and cookies will help.

You may say that this cannot happen to you as you have antivirus programs installed. But antivirus programs work against viruses. Backdoor Santa is not a virus. Antivirus programs will neither detect nor remove Backdoor Santa from your computer.

All said and done, Backdoor Santa is a spyware. What you need is an antispyware program to make sure that your computer is secure against all Backdoor Santas.

At RemoveSpywareandAdware.com, we are honored to have Isaiah Henry as researcher on how to remove spyware. He has written on the likes of XoftSpySE. Visit RemoveSpywareandAdware.com for free information.

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