'Spyware' label slippery

摘要

Even as the menace grows, security vendors are hav-ing increasing difficulty defining and identifying spy-ware, and their indecision is slowing efforts to assist frustrated IT managers tasked with keeping employees' PCs clean. But help could be on the way. Leading anti-spyware vendors are working with the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology to develop guidelines for defining spyware. The ad hoc group, which has representatives from 10 leading anti-spyware companies, could release as early as next month a list of "dozens of criteria" that define spyware, said Richard Stiennon, vice president of threat research at Webroot Software Inc., in Boulder, Colo.