Presentation Transcript

1. System Monitoring Software

   Alex Lindenmayer, Kailey Meadows, Brian Sanchez, and Marc Beaubrun
2. What is it? Software monitors occur more commonly, sometimes as a part of a widget engine. These monitoring systems are often used to keep track of system resources, such as CPU usage and frequency, or the amount of free RAM.
3. What is it? (continued) They are also used to display items such as free space on one or more hard drives, the temperature of the CPU and other important components, and networking information including the system IP address and current rates of upload and download.
4. How does it work? It usually runs in an unknown location and more often than not, doesn’t even show up in the task manager under running applications. It can pretty much monitor everything that you do.
5. How does it work? (continued) It can record and monitor your emails, websites visited, social network activity, instant messages, and it can even see what programs you may run. It’s also not detectable by antivirus software in most cases.
6. What damage can it inflict on a computer/network? System monitoring software itself usually doesn’t do much damage. It mostly just monitors what you do, but if it is used incorrectly, it can be used to steal your information like your full name, address, phone number, or your credit card number.
7. What damage can it inflict on a computer/network? (continued) It can also slow down the computer a lot if your computer was slow to begin with. There isn’t really a lot of damage that can be done from the actual system monitoring software itself, just how it is utilized.
8. How does it become loaded onto your computer? More often than not, system monitoring software is loaded onto the computer by a company so that they can monitor what employees do on their computers.
9. How does it become loaded onto your computer? (continued) Other times though, the software can be sneaked onto a computer through a trustworthy program you may be installing.
10. What are some recommended steps to take to avoid this type of spyware? You should be aware of what your downloading at all times. Go and check everything that a program says it is going to install before just clicking “next, next, continue, install, close”.
11. What are some steps to take to avoid this type of spyware? (continued) Try to avoid it like you would with any other virus too. Don’t download things from suspicious emails, don’t illegally download music or videos etc.
12. Vocabulary words System monitor- a hardware/software service used to monitor things on a computer Widget engine- a portable software using code intended for one or more software’s RAM- random access memory, a type of volatile memory used for running applications that stores quickly accessed information IP Address- a numerical label assigned to each device on the internet
13. Vocabulary words (continued) Computer- a machine that can execute a list of programmed instructions Laptop- a portable computer that can be used in many different environments Virus- small programs and scripts that negatively can effect your computer
14. Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_monitor http://computer-spying-software.com/HowItWorks.html http://www.techterms.com/