Trojans and Worms and Spyware, Oh My

[beyond hope]

My dad was having some trouble with his computer yesterday. I sat down with a disc containing Spybot, Ad-aware, and Hijack This around 5 pm, figuring in an hour or so tops I'd have it cleaned.

As of 9:00pm today, here's what Ii've removed, in no particular order:

Adware.Cax
Downloader.ET
Trojan.ByteVerify
Shinwow.A
Classloader.B
Startpage.FH
Alexa
WebDialer
Comet Cursor
Conducent Timesink
GAIN/Gator/Claria
Roings
Mysearch Toolbar
Cool Web Search

I believe I have finally dug the last of this shit out of the system, although MSN Explorer still comes up with a "this program has encountered an internal error and must close" message. I left a note for my dad to reinstall MSN 9 and I'm hoping that fixes that problem.

That brings me to the point of this whole tale of woe: my dad's computer runs WinXP Home edition, and I'm not at all familiar with it. I'd appreciate any advice on what sort of vulnerabilities I should look for and how I can best prevent recurrences. I'm trying to sell him on switching to Firefox, but I'm assuming I'll have to deal with MSN Explorer instead.

[darthdavid]

Make sure to keep all the updated in order, and make sure he's not the obsessvie type that clicks on popups/Urgent Update emails. Oh and a tip for getting someone who doesn't want to switch browsers to switch to firefox that i found with my little sister, show them skins. The crap released by microshit comes with their skin and only their skin. Even people who don't "get" technology can be persuaded if the new browser looks "pretty" enough.

[Guy N. Cognito]

Windows XP isn't that bad when it comes to security., unless you have XP home edition. It's like ther tried to create a network OS. But instead cut out a bunch of features they thought the general oublic wouldn't understand. Which of course takes out the security functions a lot of the time. My fiancè and I run XP, but I use professional and she Home. After weeks of being on the internet, and me in back ends and her just regular surfing, she has all the spyware and I'm clean. We both use the same browser and everything. Your best advice is frequent sweeps. She does hers weekly.

[TempestMagister]

XP is horrible. I use to get pop-ups on my old computer, but I could usually just find the program creating pop-ups, close it, and be done with. Now with XP it has "user-ease" systems to let pop-ups and spware perpetuate, even if someone tries to fix the problem manually. I have to run Ad-Aware and Spybot to get with of the adware programs, and I am not even sure if there is some spyware lurking somewhere deep in my system. I need to somehow grab a professional edition of XP. Come-on, the first web-site I visit when I first got my XP computer downloaded an adware program and expanded 3 pop-ups.

[phongn]

Windows XP isn't that bad when it comes to security., unless you have XP home edition. It's like ther tried to create a network OS. But instead cut out a bunch of features they thought the general oublic wouldn't understand. Which of course takes out the security functions a lot of the time.

Most of the security functions that are in XP Professional are in XP Home -- and none of the cuts are relevant to internet browsing.

My fiancè and I run XP, but I use professional and she Home. After weeks of being on the internet, and me in back ends and her just regular surfing, she has all the spyware and I'm clean. We both use the same browser and everything. Your best advice is frequent sweeps. She does hers weekly.

It's not her OS that's causing her problems if you stay clean and she doesn't.

XP is horrible. I use to get pop-ups on my old computer, but I could usually just find the program creating pop-ups, close it, and be done with. Now with XP it has "user-ease" systems to let pop-ups and spware perpetuate, even if someone tries to fix the problem manually.

The problem is primarily (1) IE and (2) the fact that everyone runs with themselves in the Administrator group when they shouldn't. XP/2K/98/whatver has little to do with it.

I have to run Ad-Aware and Spybot to get with of the adware programs, and I am not even sure if there is some spyware lurking somewhere deep in my system. I need to somehow grab a professional edition of XP. Come-on, the first web-site I visit when I first got my XP computer downloaded an adware program and expanded 3 pop-ups.

You have to be proactive.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yeh, me be paraniod but I still get problems....

[Pu-239]

I've never had any problems when I ran 2K (then again, didn't use it for too long since the hard drive died, then I installed Linux and nuked Windows after overreacting to some comments made by BoredShirtless regarding piracy).

Still, 2k had been pretty reliable. Get a firewall, dump IE, and optionally disable MS's html rendering engine by removing permissions from mshtml.dll I think (this will break things like help, OE, and the winamp minibrowser among other things). Two partitions are good too, with data on the 2nd partition- too bad you can't unmount- or can you? You can also change your home/desktop directory too, and default install directory in case space runs out on one partition. Use NTFS, etc.

Also, dialup is also nice to prevent infections - stuff takes too long to download.


Using Linux on dialup sucks, when one has to download all software (27 hours for an APT update).

[White Haven]

XP is fine if you browse intelligently. I'm running a pair of XP Pro machines using no third-party firewalls of any kind. Ditch IE, keep spybot around if you ever find you start needing it (I never have on my home systems). Use a little common sense about the net, that sort of thing. On the flip side, a lot depends on how worthlessly shitty your ISP may or may not be. ISPs can filter a LOT of stuff out, and I happen to have one that stays on the ball with security threats and such, so I have an added layer of protection. Anyone who goes out and gets, say, Comcast deserves what they get.