Spyware info Part 2


OK I hope You had a chance to  read  the article on how you got infected from  the Spybot Forums.  

Regular visitor of this site have heard me blather on and on about  going to some of the sites that are dangerous and about being careful about antispyware programs that are actually badguys in disguise.  It sort of  like the question we used to ask our moms.  What does a bad guys look like?  Well he doesn't wear a black hat like in the old westerns,  or even a black cloack like Darth Vader.  He looks just like everybody else.

On  my spyware programs page, I tried to make sure that all the links were from a source I trusted, in this case Major Geeks.

My son Jeremy just called because he though he had been attacked with a virus or trojan or something.  When he went on the internet,  he kept getting popups telling his computer was infected and to click here to  fix it.  He was infected but it was the infection that was causing the pop ups.  Clicking on them would have cause more problems.  Some pop up windows are actually graphic links.  That little x in the corner doesn't just close the window, it takes you to a hijacker's page or even worse downloads a trojan etc.  If  hitting the escape key doesn't work, try  CTRL + W.  

Another thing my son asked was "Isn't there just one program that could take care of everything."  Unfortunatly that's not the case.  A couple years ago , a nasty hijacker called Cool Web Search was released and everytime someone figured out how to beat it, the maker would alter it just a little.  A college student called Merjin, spent all his time  working on a tool called CWShredder, just to attack this little bugger.  He finally turned it over to a comercial company on the provision that it remain free. Here is a link to the Cool web Search Chronicals.  It tells the story

Because of this many fixes are specialized .  What one doesn't find another will.  Keeping up with the varients is a full time job and usually manned with volunteers.  These folks are just amazing

Part 3