Spyware

[Daston]

Hi guys the other day my pc was infected by spyware I was down loading some mod's for some games when I got the little red cross in the tool bar saying my system had a virus, then a few seconds later norton poped up saying it had deleted a few files that had trojens attached. I didnt think much more of it until I minimised internet explorer and there was a hugh black banner with yellow writing saying "WARNING YOUR PC HAS BEEN INFECTED WITH SPYWARE OTHER PEOPLE MAY NOW BE ABLE TO SEARCH YOUR SYSTEM FOR PERSONNEL INFORMATION SUCH AS BANK DETAILS" etc etc. now I tryed everything norton looked straight through it, ad-aware spotted the infected files but couldnt do anything and in the end I had to reinstall xp because it kept comming up with an explorer error when I booted up

any ideas?? as I'm afraid to download anything now

[Abdul]

Hmm, Spybot Worked a treat for me heres a link, download this and use it let us know what happens.

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

[GrahamGarside]

As much as it pains me, microsofts effort is actually quite good

[Daston]

So have you had this happen to you before Abdul?

[noob]

I was surprised with MS's effort - pleasantly so
try lavasoft AdAware as well
btw I get less problems with AVG - free than I had with norton
some stuff is written just for norton in mind
btw you can run many antispyware progs but only 1 antivirus - you get conflicts

[Aedan]

I have personally had issues with AVG not picking stuff up that both Trend and Symantec have picked up. (Caveat: I work for Symantec, but am nothing to do with their products)

[JC Denton]

i have mutliple scanners on my PC

Webroot
NoAdware
Ad Aware 6
Microsoft Anti-spyware
Search & Destroy

and there are more on the net...

usually each one finds some of the spyware.

dont afraid to download cause of them. (most of them are just slowing down the PC and be generally annoying )
if u have Win XP make sure u have SP2 installed and also a firewall and a pop-up blocker is recommended (MSN toolbar for IE for example,...)

u must regulary clean that trash ( lets say once a week )

also have a bit of common sence . dont click every damned porn or smiley or i dont know what free stuff advertisment. those pages are breeding ground for trojans, malware, spyware, etc,...

[skool h8r]

Try SpywareGuard (search google for it), it blocks spyware before it even downloads! And SpywareBlaster (by the same people who made SpywareGuard) which is also good.

[Aedan]

Also consider using an alternative browser. There are at least 29 security holes that are awaiting a fix or a complete fix at this point in time, of which ten are moderate to high risk.

[JC Denton]

nope...IE is safe !!! IF !!! u do not rely on the browser's security itself ( like most amateurs do so they pick firefox ).

i do not care what kind of holes the browser has, on MY PC there is a heavy independent security system that prevents **** from getting in without my autorization ( but u can be dumb enough to download all the files u find and get a virus for sure )

besides SP2 has been installed which removed most of teh major holes.

the idea of a safe browser is false. no browser is safe without proper cleaners, FW and AV systems.
and one more thing: once u have internet, u ll never be 100 % safe.

technology CAN and it DOES fail.

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by JC Denton

nope...IE is safe !!! IF !!! u do not rely on the browser's security itself ( like most amateurs do so they pick firefox ).

A hole in the browser that allow a remote machine to cause execution of code on your system is a huge problem, especially as it could be done in a manner that your "heavy independent security" would not be able to detect (No files written to disk for a start!).

A number of AV programs can be terminated without alerting the user there's a good start. A few years back, I wrote some proof of concept code that's designed to terminate certain parts of personal firewalls, so that they would not block subsequent actions.

AV programs can only recognise existing threats, not new threats, so they're useless as a line of defence against anything the vendor has not seen.

[JC Denton]

listen dude...

NOD32 hasnt left out a single virus, its updated every god damned day.
and speaking of not writing files on disc for a start: surprise ! NOD32 provides scanners that scan your browser AND RAM memory. i stumbled across servers and attempted download which SEEMED good. i got a virus warning from NOD32 before i even started teh download progres and allowed me that i simply just clicked disconnect from file button.

i just wonder why i dont have anymore problems with my PC since i changed my security programs if your theories are so correct...

proper security IS far more IMPORTANT than just a choice of a browser...

[Aedan]

Browsers start downloading before you see the progress bar (or save as dialog). (Actually, the only way they know the filename is from the headers in the download itself. If they didn't start the download first, they couldn't know the filename. If it wasn't the case, then NOD32 would have to be psychic to know that you were going to download a file that contained a virus.

Symantec Antivirus is updated every 55minutes. So what? According to independant antivirus monitors, Symantec covers all the viruses from the "in the wild" list. Of course, the list that is used depends on which independant antivirus monitor you use... The perils of benchmarking!

[JC Denton]

well...i m not going to "force" u in anything...but from my experiances and from other sources which are valid i heard that its not quite like that.

but...its your choice. do what u want

[hoinar]

Originally Posted by JC Denton

nope...IE is safe !!! IF !!! u do not rely on the browser's security itself ( like most amateurs do so they pick firefox ).

i do not care what kind of holes the browser has, on MY PC there is a heavy independent security system that prevents **** from getting in without my autorization ( but u can be dumb enough to download all the files u find and get a virus for sure )

besides SP2 has been installed which removed most of teh major holes.

the idea of a safe browser is false. no browser is safe without proper cleaners, FW and AV systems.
and one more thing: once u have internet, u ll never be 100 % safe.

technology CAN and it DOES fail.

Wake up mate! What you say is that walking in a dangerous zone with an armored vehicle is the same as going on a bike and that only your personal bulletproof vest is important. If the browser is weak it really doesn't matter if your security system rocks. Take a look at www.secunia.com and after that read again what you wrote here

[JC Denton]

well i dont know what kind of systems do u have but mine has absolutely no problems and i use IE ALL THE TIME. using it right now on AOA to post stuff, using it to get pics from google, to download torrent files and many more things.

[Aedan]

Well, you're relatively safe on AOA - I don't make it a point to add anything nasty to AOA! Other systems I work on are not nearly so lucky. On one web browser that was recently released, I've got two bugs that will cause the machine to reboot! Investigations are going on to see if the issue is exploitable and will allow code execution or not.

[skool h8r]

I know how to solve this arguement, get Re-volt (or Re-volt X2 when i release it on october 5th)! :P

Also, which browser was it Aedan? (shouldn't be Re-volt, if it is, please pm me more info).

If there is a bug in a web browser, of course it's going to be exploitable, without something protecting it from being exploited which is the need for all these MS patches. It was a few years ago that IE was released and the technology that we take for granted these days, well, MS didn't realise some of the dangers of it. Such as the VBScript intergration, look at that, that's how many viruses are made and spread. Javascript is also an issue, just take the WGA 'crack', it was simply one line of javascript that could be typed into the address bar. Of course, it depends on the code used but it shows what can happen if you don't look at what code you use. IMHO, IE is more holy than the bible! Just look at it, there are patches patching the holes in patches! It is almost impossible to create an internet browser that is both flexible and secure (emphasis on almost). It has to be flexible, to be able to handle commands that you give it through javascript in a page. It has to be secure though for obvious reasons. I hope that when IE7 is released, it uses a new navigation and security engine as the current one is quite prone to problems.

[Aedan]

I can't disclose that yet, but the publishers of said browser have been informed, and have passed up the chain to their developers.

[skool h8r]

So i take it that it wasn't mine. Just what i suspected.