How are risk levels of infections determined in Spyware Doctor?
Individual infections are displayed with a colored bar (
), which is filled from left to right, depending on the level of risk. Infection risk levels are summarized as follows:
- Info & PUAs (
): these Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs) have some characteristics of malware, but possess no known risks. Typical characteristics could include: - Displaying low-impact advertisements
- Partially uninstalling
- Low (
): Typical characteristics could include: - installing components without informing the user
- Returning non-sensitive data to other servers
- Displaying nuisance adverts in pop-up windows
- Medium (
): these infections may cause inconvenience and may display misleading information. Typical characteristics could include: - Presenting the user with a misleading or incomplete End User License Agreement (EULA) during installation
- Displaying aggressive advertising in multiple pop-up windows
- Pretending to uninstall
- Elevated (
): these infections may interfere with the use of your system or may be capable of capturing low-risk data, for example sending web browsing habits to third-parties for targeted advertising. Typical characteristics could include: - No EULA displayed during installation
- Displaying unsolicited advertising
- Hijacking browser search pages
- High (): these infections may override user control of your system or pose high security risks such as capturing high-risk data for example, bank account details or passwords for unsolicited third-party use. Typical characteristics could include:
- Involuntary installation with no user interaction or control
- Hijacking browser home pages
- Returning sensitive data to other servers
- Automatically reinstalling itself following an uninstall
- Examples of these infections include keyloggers and dialers
Notes:
- On rare occasions, useful software may be categorized as malware, on the basis that it possesses characteristics which we define as malware. For this reason, when you conduct a scan with Spyware Doctor, it is recommended that you review all detected items on your system, before you decide to remove or quarantine them.
- Malware is constantly changing and evolving, therefore infection risk levels may be updated without notice at any time.
- See our disclaimer for more information.
