Even though you may not own the hardware that houses your website, it is very important to know how to clean up spyware. Unfortunately, there are people that know how to hack into parent servers, and then place copies of adware on the customer accounts. In most cases, you should be able to remove the spyware with a minimal amount of difficulty.
Observing Your Website
Once your site is running, you can always review it from any web browser. If spyware is present at the host level, you may see popups, as well as other kinds of unauthorized content. In a similar way, keyloggers and screen capture scripts will tend to make your computer run slower. You may even be able to pick up the presence of this type of spyware by running an anti-spyware program before and after you access your website.
Server Based Tools
If you are able to detect spyware that originates from your website, you can try looking in your hosting account to locate the files. From there, you can try to erase them, or see if there is anyone that can show you how to clean up spyware. When you find these kinds of issues, it may also be a good thing to notify the web host, and ask them to see if there is spyware in areas that you are unable to access.
As more people rely on shared hosting solutions, adware designers will look to these servers to spread malware. While you may not be responsible for network security, you can still help server administrators learn about developing problems. At the same time, you will also be helping to ensure that visitors to your website do not experience spyware related issues.
