Organizations are increasingly eyeing spyware as a threat that needs to be blocked from reaching end users' desktops. A catchword for software programs that watch what end users are doing at their computers, spyware is said to encompass everything from marketing cookies, pop-ups and adware downloaded with peer-to-peer file-sharing programs to malicious Trojans and keyloggers designed to steal personal data. Even at its most benign, spy-ware is generating anger in corporations that see it jamming up user desktops, causing malfunctions and slowdowns. "It's an insidious scourge of the Internet" says Lisa Hagen, IT manager at biotechnology manufacturing firm Labcyte in Sunnyvale, Calif. "These are pieces of software that get installed unbeknownst to you."
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