Distance studies or distance learning has greatly grown in popularity over the past years, partly due to the growing interest in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). As distance studies tend to have online exams, with the benefit of lower cost for the universities and more flexibility for students, there is a need for attention for online exam security. Online exam security is one part process and part technical solutions, e.g. PC lockdown or spyware programs. This study has shown that both the process and the spyware at an undisclosed Swedish university (University X) has security vulnerabilities and may result in cheating remaining undetected. The proposed prototype in this study handles these security vulnerabilities but needs further development to function as a production ready program. There is also a need for more research on a common path for online exam security as the current studies are proposing many different ways. Finally, spyware programs for legitimate purposes need to find the balance between privacy and cheating prevention, to provide trust and confidence to students interested in distance learning.