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Healthy food for a good night’s sleep.I am Kasha Dubinska, a mother of a lovely baby girl and a ome "chef" of ealthy baby food. Together with a nutritionist, I produced Yummy Beginnings a DVD has hints about starting your ...
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Authors: 2,495 Views: 4,464,763 Published: 8,378
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Articles » Computers » Software » Spyware and the Windows Registry
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- Article Views: 159
- Word Count: 567
- Date Contributed: May 26, 2008
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| Spyware and the Windows Registry |
Have you ever wondered why anti-spyware programs like ParetoLogic's XoftSpySE also scan your Windows Registry? You may ask, "spyware programs are executable files, you cannot hide a program in the registry, can you"?
Indeed, you can't, but many spyware programs do use the Windows Registry in order to conceal themselves, or in order to make better stowaways on your ship. There are various ways in which spyware programs use the Windows Registry, to find out how read on.
First of all, the Windows Registry stores system-wide settings, which include a number of fairly important ones, such as the keys which contain the programs to run upon the system's start up sequence, or the registered browser helper objects in the system. These keys are all public, meaning that any program can write to them without restriction (or, on systems where user hierarchy is enforced, programs with Administrator or Power User privileges can write to them without restriction). They are in fact used by installation programs, so they are the target of both legitimate and illegitimate installations.
However, this is still not the whole picture. The Windows Registry contains several other system-wide settings, which allow for programs to conceal themselves under different identities or exploiting various vulnerabilities and to start and run with elevated privileges so as to have access to more of the computer's resources.
In addition to allowing programs to conceal themselves, the Windows Registry is also an important source of information and perhaps this is the most significant part. The registry contains personal information, information about the hardware and software of your system and in the case of some applications, even sensitive personal information which is stored in the registry in non-readable form in an attempt to keep it secure. However, Windows is fairly liberal about registry access, and with many users not enforcing security settings, this information is readily available to any kind of spyware programs.
Due to this liberality, it is possible to change many sensitive system-wide settings. The registry is used to store almost any kind of system-wide settings, security settings included. It can be used not only to guess what vulnerabilities does the system exhibit, but it can also be used to open new ones, by simply manipulating settings accordingly.
It is easy to see that the availability of data in a readable form itself is reason enough for spyware-related concerns. However, it is very difficult, if not completely impossible to protect yourself from this kind of problem, this is what the Windows Registry was created for in the first place.
However, using a good registry-cleaning software can still be helpful for cleansing purposes, in two cases, both of them reasonable when the registry cleaning software is used in conjunction with anti-spyware software. First of all, when a system is disinfected, the spyware that has just been purged does leave some tracks in the registry. Although anti-spyware programs do as good a job as possible in cleaning after them, they are not registry cleaning software, and cleaning your registry after a successful disinfection can prove very helpful. Furthermore, if the registry is kept in good order, scanning it is faster and more reliable. As a consequence, if you consistently use a good registry cleaning program like RegCure, your anti-spyware program will be able to scan your registry faster and more reliably.
The auther specialises in computer security and optimisation. To read reviews on the top five Anti-Spyware programs visit http://www.top5-anti-spyware.com
Article Source: UnArchived Articles
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