Turns out that the persistent piece of software (DLDER.exe; ed.) was a Trojan horse -- that is, it appeared to be one thing but in reality was another. In fact, it placed software on Hurring's hard drive that recorded every URL he visited, as well as some of the user IDs he employed on his Web travels.
The phrase "Set a thief to catch a thief" comes to mind.
Still, getting this word out to more people is good. If you're going to download free on a peer to peer network, the only one that does not have spyware (to my knowledge) is WINMX. But, even with this- be aware that you will experience a spike in UDP port probes. (get zone alarm)
Still, to be safe a user should download ad-aware or another like program that sniffs out and deletes spyware from your system.
This could allow the use of your machine by an unknown perpetrator to attack other machines such as a DOS attack. I could just see the Feds showing up at a door; "Sir why did you attack this other web site?" etc.
Here are the software packages I run in real-time. These won’t keep you completely secure but they certainly are better than nothing:
Spyblocker
http://www.morelerbe.com/spyblocker
Zone Alarm
http://www.zonelabs.com/
Tauscan
http://www.agnitum.com/
Trojan Hunter Guard
http://www.mischel.dhs.org/trojanhunter.asp
Analog-X Script Defender
< http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/sdefend.htm
These are the programs I run occasionally to insure my system is clean:
Ad-Aware
http://www.spychecker.com/download.html
TS-3 Trojan detector and remover
http://tds.diamondcs.com.au/
Any good virus checker and remover such as Norton.
This is a Web site that will give you more information than you ever thought possible about computer security:
And see post # 7
I down loaded the outfit with all the "A's" in it... decideded almost immediately I didn't like it and uninstalled! Norton immediately found a trojan and couldn't fix it, but quaranteened it. It corrupted my explorer.exe file.
Not being too swift on removing and restoring said file, I used Norton's link to symantec.com to get help at a cost of $11.95. I allowed their sub-contracting tech to come in and do it for me. She removed it from my registry while I watched. I was amazed and impressed.