Spyware following spam into the enterprise

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Spyware is even worse than spam in my view

We block most of our spam at a mail gateway and I'd say 95% of it gets flushed unread. Spyware, on the other hand, is in your face and crippling your PC, at least if you're one of those types of users who enthusiastically clicks yes to any prompt a web site might give you and who enjoys downloading moronic programs to put smiley emoticons in your Outlook mail, for instance. It's the leading cause of performance-related support calls at my organization and I've wasted dozens if not hundred of hours out of my busy days getting rid of this worthless garbage.

I'm not sure which bugs me more about spyware, the fact the programs that represent it are so utterly and completely pointless (shopping companions, stupid toolbars, special cursors, grinning purple monkeys, etc.) or the fact they're so poorly coded as to bring a system to its knees (it's ironic, because the poor programming skills on the part of the shameless cretins who write this drool thereby guarantee their products aren't going to last long, since IT will be alerted by complaining users to get rid of whatever is infesting the PC). I have seen public web browsing terminals that literally took 10 minutes to boot, and on which it was impossible to launch Internet Explorer due to the plethora of trash on them. Hotbar, MyWebsearch, BargainBuddy, Gator, Clearsearch, Clocksync, Precision Time, Date Manager, NewDotNet, CoolWebSearch, the horrendous Weatherbug program (which sucks down 18 Mb of RAM and adds at least 30 seconds to any PC's startup time), and my personal "favorite" - AdDestroyer, which pretends to be blocking ads but in reality makes sure it blasts you with nothing but junk - all of these need to be nuked on sight. And in my view the people who code this crud ought to be thrown in the slammer for trespassing and vandalism, given that this is pretty much all their miserable, misery-producing programs do. This is why people are utterly sick and tired of the constant, slobbering advertising that is out there, because the jerks pushing it are now invading their PCs to frantically shove ads in our faces.

I don't think end users should have to pay for anti-spyware solutions. I use four free tools: Ad-Aware and Spybot to scan for and delete this filth, Spywareblaster to prevent it from ever being installed, and HiJackThis as a general tool to see what's being loaded on startup and to remove some of the nastier elements of spyware which take over your start page in Internet Explorer, for instance. (Check Google for the download locations) Using these four programs plus making a careful analysis of what's under the Program Files folder and what is set in the registry to start up, I've always been able to tidy up the machines I support.

Lest there be any doubt as to what kind of vermin is behind spyware, some of these companies (Newdotnet, for one) are actually suing the makers of Ad-Aware for listing their product as spyware. Newdotnet is one of the nastiest components of spyware I've seen, if it is not carefully removed it will trash your network connection. That's by design. Easy rule of thumb: if any product forces you to go to their website to uninstall it or gives you some angry/pleading litany that "our product is NOT spyware!" that means it IS spyware and needs to be deleted immediately.

Follow these steps to remain spyware-free:

1. Set IE to disable downloads (for IE 6 go to Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet, Custom Level) If you need to turn this off temporarily later on you can always reverse this.

2. Set IE to disable the installation of desktop items (for IE 6 go to Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet, Custom Level)

3. Install Spywareblaster and update it periodically.

4. Never click yes if a website wants you to install some program in order to "view it properly."

5. Stay away from warez, porn, gambling, and other sleazy sites.

6. Never, ever buy anything advertised through popup ads thrown at you thanks to spyware. And the same goes for spam. If you really want to get industrious, contact the makers of said products and inform them you have declined to purchase their products thanks to their support of spyware and its infantile, bullying tactics.

Eventually we'll take control of our own computers back from those who would commandeer them for their own grubby intentions.

Posted by: mreilly19   Posted on: 06/01/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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