Terminating Spyware With Extreme Prejudice~"It's like a baptism for your computer," Mr. Wagner said

The New York Times ^ | December 30, 2004 | RACHEL DODES

[Malsua]

Thanks for your homepage anti spyware advice. Great one stop guide.

I was typing this stuff out over and over heh, so I just stuck it in there and kept adding. Hopefully it's of some use. I use it myself just to get the links quickly. Cheers.

[dennisw]

My biggest fear is some kind of spyware (Trojan?) being inserted that will log my on line financial transactions, leading to hackers stealing from my accounts. What is the best protection for this? I use IE half the time, but always use FireFox for such transactions

[dennisw]

You are very helpful because you have to wrestle with spyeare infections every day. You are the expert. It's hard for the average computer user to figure out exactly what he should do to clean up and protect his computer. You have
made it easy.

Are Trojans, malware, adware, spyware covered (fixed) by one anti-spyware program in particular? Seems to me the terms are somewhat interchangeable.

[1L]

I believe its that good. I was using AVG, but still having some things pop up every now and then. But I find Avast much better.

[Malsua]

What is the best protection for this?

The answer is all of the above. Heh.

Here's the short answer. If you are on broadband for gosh sakes go spend the $40 and buy a router if you haven't already. I've seen them as low as $10 after rebates. Netgear or Linksys. Dlink leaves port 135 open, so dollar for dollar, I just tell people not to get Dlink. You end up having to forward port 135 to nowhere, but that's a different dicussion. This step alone will make you immune to worms and external hackers.

Next, install Zone alarm, the personal version is free and it takes a few days to get it trained, but that's not a big deal. It's worth it. I run it.

Next make sure your Anti-virus is up to speed. All the commercial ones are good. Some better than others, but all work well enough.

Finally, you need a resident spy monitor if you use IE. I suggest Webroot's spysweeper. The one coming from Microsoft next month might be good as well. For now, go grab the free trial of spysweeper and let it run resident. You get 30 days and the MS product should be out by then if you don't want to pay for it.

Do all those things and you are pretty durned safe. Just pay attention if zone alarm barks. If you don't recognize what program is asking for external access, do some research before you allow it.

All of those things above won't help you if you're not sure that you're on the proper website. Never follow links in emails if you can help it. Always type it in simply because it could be a redirector that looks like the right thing, but isn't. There's an extension for firefox called spoofstick. It reports at the top of the page what domain you're at. If I'm going somewhere that makes me nervious, I turn it on.

You can also get small versions of Linux that boot from the CD and do transactions that way if you need better security. Macs are also pretty safe, but problems can and do occur. Nothing is secure 100% unless you unplug it from the internet.

[Malsua]

Are Trojans, malware, adware, spyware covered (fixed) by one anti-spyware program in particular?

No. I understand however that GIANT's anti-spyware product, recently acquired by MS is about as good as it gets. I've not tried it, I can't offer commentary. Trojans are generally covered by your anti-virus software. Adware/spyware are not. Malware is a whole seperate issue, that's a very broad category. MALicous softWARE can be just about anything. The others categories fit into Malware. Most of all these problems can be avoided by NOT installing free software found on the internet, not going to see jingle cards or whatever sent from your co-worker who thinks he's a comedian and NEVER click "yes" if a website gives you a pop-up and says "trust us, we just need to install this little piece of software".

Personally, I strip out most of the bad/ad content using Admuncher. I get no popups or ads of any sort. It also protects your browser from all sort of obscene behaviour, like redirects and resizing your windows or moving your browser around, etc. Give it a shot. It's linked on my FR page toward the bottom. Free 30 day trial.

[dennisw]

Many thanks for all the advice on malicious spyware and Trojans
I have broadband and use zone alarm
I guess I'll get a router for that "hardware firewall". I've just been too cheap to so until now. I'll look for a Christmas deal. I'm not interested in wireless ones but there are a few cheap ones mentioned here....  http://www.techbargains.com/

You can also get small versions of Linux that boot from the CD and do transactions that way if you need better security. 

I've used CD Knoppix to do an XP windows repair. I can really do the transaction on a bootable CD and it will leave no trace on the computer? Mandrake has one also now. Great idea!! I think Next would be to put a legitimate Linux partition my hard drive

 

[holymoly]

My biggest fear is some kind of spyware (Trojan?) being inserted that will log my on line financial transactions, leading to hackers stealing from my accounts.  What is the best protection for this?

1.) A good Anti-Virus product, such as AVG or AntiVir.

2.) A Firewall* (even if you're on dial-up), will help you monitor & control data transmitted by your computer, both inbound and outgoing.

3.) Avoid using Microsoft Internet Explorer, Outlook/Outlook Express. If you must use MSIE, consider installing a full-time (memory resident) anti-adware/spyware program. I believe the free version of Spybot Search & Destroy offers the option of full-time protection.

4.) Periodically scan your system with Ad-Aware SE and/or Spybot Search and Destroy.

5.) Even if you have full-time, memory-resident anti-virus protection, periodically scan your system with Antidote Superlite.

*If you are unfamiliar with Firewalls, this article will help you get started:
PCWorld: How to Install a Firewall

[JoJo Gunn]

You might want to look these over:

Spyware Blaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html


ZoneAlarm firewall:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/trial_zaFamily/trial_zaFamily.jsp?lid=2home_freedownloads

Some computer help forums:

http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/index.php?s=

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/

http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php?b=1

Hijack This (and some other aids to fight spyware) can be found here:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

[holymoly]

Thank you.

[Dont Mention the War]

Does one run into fewer spyware problems with a Mac? Thanks-Mom

Spyware, viruses and the like are essentially nonexistent on the Mac operating system (known as "OS X"). (And before the psychotic Billbots start screeching their protestations: Yes, there are a few theoretical holes here and there in OS X, but the reality is that nothing out there in the real world that takes advantage of these holes in any harmful fashion.)

The last time I got a virus on one of my Macs was in 1990. I have never gotten any spyware. The average Windows PC, by comparison, gets infected within four minutes of first being connected to the Internet.

[Malsua]

I guess I'll get a router for that "hardware firewall".

You really should. I tell it to Every end user that comes to me for Advice when getting Cable/DSL. Your IP address becomes invisible because the router simply drops the packet. Your address goes on the hackers "no response list". If your computer does respond on any port, even secured ones, you can bet your ass, they're going to pound your address if a new vuln comes out.

For deals, also check out Ecost.com and dealcatcher.com.

And yes, you can use Knoppix. It'll need access to the drive for some swapping so you might need a non NTFS partition, not sure if has an NTFS driver. There's lots of distros, I'm going to say SUSE is my choice. Mandrake can be a pain, forget OpenBSD unless you're really into Linux. Your mileage may vary. For a desktop Personally, I like Gnome, but KDE is more windows like. I'm too lazy to surf on my Linux box though. Heh. I just make sure I don't do anything stupid.

[TomB]

bump

(I use IE6 and Firefox both because some things run better on one than the other, and I use WinXP because I want to be able to run any program I want.)

[Dan Middleton]

>>n a pop-music-induced frenzy, I am embarrassed to admit, I went to www.kazaa.com, downloaded and installed the free file-sharing service, then proceeded to download (a k a steal) Britney Spears's and Madonna's collaborative effort, "Me Against the Music."<<

Then you deserved everything you got!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Take a look at Xandros Version 3 , it is getting good reviews for being a point and click OS and friendly to the Windows Users....

I am running V2 and has good fonts, performs decent, is a Linux variant and for browsing , seems better than Windows XP Pro.

[dennisw]

http://www.xandros.com/products/home/desktopoc/dsk_oc_intro.html

Plus the older (open circulation)versions are very cheap on ebay

I will download it tonight and try it out....thanks

[goldstategop]

Install I.E Spy-ad. Its a simple registry patch that adds a motherlode list of known advertisers, marketers, and scumware pushers to your Internet Explorer Restricted Zones list. Think of it as wearing a software condom while browsing the Web since no matter what your browser preferences are in general, it will automatically switch to secure mode when it wanders onto sites known to be "high risk" environments. Restricted Zone simply means hackers can't run ANY code on your computer. An an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it is FREE.

[goldstategop]

Reliable anti-spyware company. Now a Microsoft subsidiary and Redmond is reportedly releasing a free anti-spyware software beta for users to download in the New Year.

[goldstategop]

The full version will have more features. What's going to be on tap for awhile is the beta version so no one knows yet how much MS will charge for a full-featured premium anti-spyware product.

[goldstategop]

See my post about I.E Spy-ad. Also download and install a free copy of Spyware Blaster. That way when you surf the web, no blocklisted program that you don't want can ever be installed on your computer. Ideally, it helps to have a multi-layered protection system in place to block viruses, worms, trojans, dialers and keyloggers. Its a dangerous world out there.