Spyware / virus sophistication

[Spinflight]

I note that there a quite a few people on this forum adept at cleaning out operating systems affected by spyware and viruses.

I myself have been involved with this on a part time basis for some time now and it worries me.

It strikes me that the cures are lagging well behind the problem, and furthermore the trend appears to be accelerating.

Often I leave a system knowing fine well that there is still nasties present on it, however if nothing picks them up then there is little you can do.

Many times I have noted virus like activity on my home PC, yet been unable to find anything despite utilising a huge range of different programs and measures. The cure has usually taken months rather than weeks to appear.

Difficult to relate particular incidents when dealing with other people's machines but I have seen my own virus checker disabled on two ocasions now, on one occasion the administrator privaleges of an account were revoked.

Is anyone, like me, starting to wonder how much longer Windows wil be a viable platform, even with anti-adwares, virus checker and firewall, given the rate of increase and sophistication of the virusses?

[ZH875]

I sometimes wonder if any viruses are made by the Antivrus software companies, it must be the perfect closed loop market to stay in business.

Create a virus, create the antivirus, create a new virus.....

[Spinflight]

There was a scandal not terribly long ago with an anti-virus company (reminscent of motorbikes) who provided a virus warning, only for someone to show that they had been infected by the virus. Only problem being that it had come straight from the offices of said company....

[Blacksheep]

I switched from IE to Firefox a while ago beacause it is supposed to be more secure than IE.

I have a software firewall set at 'Paranoid' and also have the XP built-in firewall turned on. As well as my automatically self-updating AV programme, Spybot is set to monitor all incoming traffic, is updated weekly and my system is 'immunised'. I regularly do a 'Hijack This' scan and compare the log with the previous logs - no changes. Yet I recently noticed virus-like activity. Like Spinflight, nothing I tried could find anything. The problem with all this protection is that it depends on permission being granted for progams to access the network. To browse websites, the browser has to have such permission and so remains an ever-open door.

On Friday while browsing the BBC in one window and Googling in the other, Firefox disappeared. I disconnected from the net and investigated. Nothing would bring Firefox back. Not even un-installing the program and re-installing.

Many times I have noted virus like activity on my home PC, yet been unable to find anything despite utilising a huge range of different programs and measures. The cure has usually taken months rather than weeks to appear. No need to wait, the cure for all ills is already at hand. You can reformat the hard drive, re-install your software and restore your data files from your back-up DVD. (You do have a back-up, right?) But that is quite a workload and took the best part of Saturday to complete.

The question is, have the CWS filth begun targeting Mozilla now? I've said it before and I'll say it again. Computer crime needs to be elevated in seriousness and we must see some really heavy prison sentences handed out. Never mind freedom of speech, the right to privacy and protection from criminal damage are important rights too. Maybe we can't track down all the guilty software authors but much of the illegal activity centres on advertising various dodgy products and services. The law can easily track and act against those who patronise spyware/malware authors.

[Spinflight]

the right to privacy and protection from criminal damage are important rights too.

Agreed. However it is apparent to me that even with a paranoid level of security, windows is still not secure enough. Most people don't even use a firewall, and though XP does contain a firewall it is generally switched off at install.

Cleaning out PCs is a time consuming and specialist task.... I have done several without asking for payment, quite frankly given the time required and the level of competence needed it would not be economically viable for most people. There is clearly a huge market out there.

I suspect that we shall see a growing exodus to Linux based systems in the next couple of years, which is no bad thing.... I am not an anti-corporate Microsoft basher but I suspect that many of the problems arise from their refusal to make the Windows API open knowledge; though having a shell as easily hijacked as IE dosn't help.

[F4Fan]

One of the things I have done is create several user accounts.

I have an admin one which allows me to download, remove, install etc and I have created users with very tight controls.

the problem sometimes is that we all log on as ADMIN...with all the rights needed to install items. If we logon as very restricted users its a little bit difficult for items to install them selves as they dont have free access to all the ADMIN systems.

But....I still get some very clever spyware on my system