Consumers’ computers are getting attacked by spyware programs and hijackers infiltrating their systems. Business Week has been covering this ongoing issue and recently published information about certain rogue companies that are behind the crimes. They profiled one company, “Direct Revenue,” which is under investigation in New York for hijacking computers. What happens is people click on a banner offering free software or some other product and, at that point, Direct Revenue seizes their computer. The company then forces a continuous stream of ads on users’ computers, which they cannot block or stop. The company sells these streaming ads to companies, but the companies have no idea that consumers are forced to watch the ads because their computers have been hijacked. Two of the innocent companies involved were Delta and Cingular Wireless. The companies got great response from the ads but reportedly didn’t know how it happened. Eventually, as ads continue to stream, computers are rendered useless and people have to ditch them and buy new ones. We’ll see what happens with the court case in New York involving Direct Revenue, but there are tons more companies out there. Remember to install virus protection and some type of spyware blocker on your computer. One Clark likes is called Spybot Search & Destroy. It can be downloaded from the site, safer-networking.org.