Internet insecurity

If any readers of this blog have shopped online with Sears, you definitely should read this column in Bruce Schneier's cybersecurity blog.

Is Sears Engaging in Criminal Hacking Behavior?

Sears.com is distributing spyware that tracks all your Internet usage - including banking logins, email, and all other forms of Internet usage - all in the name of "community participation." Every website visitor that joins the Sears community installs software that acts as a proxy to every web transaction made on the compromised computer. In other words, if you have installed Sears software ("the proxy") on your system, all data transmitted to and from your system will be intercepted....

Here is a summary of what the software does and how it is used. The proxy:

1. Monitors and transmits a copy of all Internet traffic going from and coming to the compromised system.
2. Monitors secure sessions (websites beginning with ‘https'), which may include shopping or banking sites....

If a kid with a scary hacker name did this sort of thing, he'd be arrested. But this is Sears, so who knows what will happen to them. But what should happen is that the anti-spyware companies should treat this as the malware it is, and not ignore it because it's done by a Fortune 500 company.