Defeating Spyware

“Jeffers, thanks so much :) It's really really appriciated.

I may need to check my kids computers (they are on the same wireless network then this one).

I would want to think that I am pretty knowledgeble in the computer department, but don't know much about this networking/ internet stuff.

Shhtt..back then when I learned I had no idea networking/WWW would ever be important to me.”

“You need to break the LAN before you rebuild any of the computers. After the first rebuild, only computers that are known safe can be reconnected to the network.

It took me over a year to recover from a similar security breach. You really have no choice but to regard all computers on your network as probably compromised.

Nice hairdo, Dana.”

“Question:
spybot keeps telling me DSO Exploit is a security hole in IE.
Do I need to remove it? If so, will IE still work??


Again, thanks jeffers... the other 2 computers are laptops...i haven o clue how to install new hard drives into laptops...
Dang!! Oh well...”

“I wouldn't remove anything from IE before researching the exploit. Go to Microsoft or Symantec and research it. Odds are a patch will fix it, but until you check it out, you won't know.

If you rebuild the desktop and network it to the other machine, your new friends are right back in. Do this.

Copy everything from the laptops that you want to save to the desktop PC over the LAN. Disconnect the LAN from all, rebuild the desktop on a new drive, once it is up and patched, sterilized, install the old desktop drive, sterilize it as described above, copy the cleansed data from the old to the new drives, slick both laptops and build them from scratch, making sure to run the 7 or more zero fills, and fdisk /mbr, then you can hook up the LAN again and move the old data from the new desktop hard drive to the "new" laptops via the LAN.

It's all about keeping track of what is cleaned and what is dirty, and making sure the two never meet, once you start rebuilding.”

“Jeffers THANKS!!!

Now another program I just have found : pcAudit

Dang!! That's pretty messed up.”

“Hackboy isn't likely to take a chance you will discover him and lock him out of his new machine.

Once he's in, he's planning to stay in.”

“Wow - I just got back from 3 days of win xp freeze heck caused by me dowloading shareware Enigma Software's shareware version of spyhunter. It froze me out at the Windows sign-on when it rebooted. $199 and one new verion of XP later I am back up and running.

That sucked. If I backed up my hard drive more regularly I could have just used the recovery disks. HP decided that they wouldn't send a copy of a windows disk - just 6 recovery disks that reformat your hard drive.

Anyway - I'm wiser and poorer.”

“My cable modem runs into a firewall/router than I have a network connection from that to my computer. Can hackers get through the router to my computer? Are the programs mentioned above free to download?

My home computer runs slow but I thought it was because I started doing video editing on it with my new camcorder. I haven't had any problem with my internet running slow though.”

“just found this thread yesterday and went home last night and downloaded Spybot and Ad-Aware. I found 293 problems with Spybot and another 95 with Ad-aware. My computer and Internet are running so much smoother . THanks for all the tips. I'm going to read through this and maybe do a couple more downloads tonight.”

“I've been getting less spam since I ran Ad-Aware, but I'm not sure there's any connection.”

“Ad-aware's deep cleaning program found all kinds of stuff that Spybot didn't, especially things like data miners.”

“funny how I'll trust and take the advice of strangers here. I just downloaded and ran Spybot (and I'm a download phobic). 119 probs found and fixed. Puter has always ran fast so didn't notice a diff there but I'm not seeing the hussler type pop-ups anymore. Also, something had happened where I couldn't use search engines with the exception of dogpile. I thought one of the kids had changed some settings and I was fit to be tied. Anyway, I can use search engines again!!...YEAH! Spybot told me I already have ad-aware. Now just need to figure how to find it and run it. Thanks everyone :)”

“anyone understand this? I just ran Ad-aware. Afterward, I noticed I couldn't use my msn search engine again. So I went back and un-did what Ad-aware just did and can use the search engine again. Grrrrr”

“Ad-aware was just disabling another piece of spyware, Ivygal...lol...

Seriously though, my guess is that it got rid of some registry setting or cookie for msn.”

“I'll master this yet”

“When I ran it, it tried to do the same thing for another MS product...MS has pretty much admitted they use lots of their programs for datamining, so that might be why Ad-aware is tough on their stuff.”

“Ad-aware denounced a lot of my old programs from MS that came with the system. After I used Skybot I couldn't stay on ebay. Every time that I chose a product it would tell me that I had an illegal operation and would shut down. I only had thirty-four bad files or keys, what is up with that? I would have thought that I had more.”

“whew!...scared me there Lobo. I just went to e-bay and looked up a couple things. Seems to be okay there for me.”

“when I added ad-aware it seemed to take care of the problem. I thought it was just the backpacks that I was looking at for awhile. I also typed in a city in the area a few day's ago and got some porn site. What is up with that?”

“It is doing it again. I just tried to bid on a Kathmandu and it shut me down. Do I really want the pack? I was kinda thinkin about an internal frame and leaving my twenty year old external frame at home.”

“I have done it now. I am not getting any email. I am not a computer person at all. I should have left well enough alone.”

“Lobo,

Ad Aware, if left to the default settings, doesn't delete things without backing them up first. Read the instructions and then perform a complete restore of all that Ad Aware has removed.

Then run it again, see what it finds, and only delete things when you understand what they are. Anything listed as "doubleclick" is junk.
Be very careful deleting anything labelled Microsoft or that you don't recognize. If you don't know what it is, cut and paste the item here and I'll try to figure out what it is.”

“one or two of my computers has a "restore to previous date" feature. Came in handy a couple of times. I am running XP Pro. not sure if the other newer versions have it. As far as I know Me (sucks anyway) doesn't have it.”

“Thanks for the advice. I have everything back to normal and working fine. Life is good.”

“Lots of good tips and tricks from PC Magazine: Put the extra features of Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-aware to work for you”

“Doesn’t it seem ironic that when you click on the links in the article that you get a pop-up ad?”

“It's just you, Lumberzac! Unless you have popup stopper.”

“I had popup stopper on my computer, but I took it off. Now the thing doesn't crash as much.”

“I don't have a pop-up blocker (I can't get into my free e-mail accounts with one turned on) and I don't get a pop-up. Check for spyware lumberzac.”

“I only got it once when I hit the back button. Now I can't seem to get one to popup.”

“TMI!”

“And that's what I get for have a conversation with king sh*tweasel.”

“Well you really lobbed an easy one in there. I couldn't resist!”

“That's ok revenge can be fun.”

“BRING IT ON!”

“Oh I will. I'm just going to wait for the right opportunity. I’m the type of person who will put a snowball in the freezer, just so I can hit someone with it in the middle of July.”

“I ran Spybot S&D and it killed my Internet Explorer and my Windows Explorer. I tried using Spybot's "undo" function, but still no IE or WE. I tried the "repair Internet Explorer" function, still nothing. I tried "file checker", and replaced bad files with un-spybotted ones from my external hard drive, and that fixed my Windows Explorer. I then used Windows Explorer to replace my bad IE with the copy on my external. Whew. All's well that ends well, but having Windows Explorer disabled really hurt, since I couldn't access my back up files.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

We've been fighting spyware and especially hijackware since last night and we seem to have finally gotten rid of it. If I EVER meet a guy who makes this stuff I will beat him to death with a shovel! Slowly!”

“Can I take a whack or two at em as well?”

“Be my guest.”

“so can any of you recommend a program for me to use on my personal computer to get rid of spyware? my computer has been so sluggish lately, and I suspect that might be part of the problem.

BTW, I'm computer illiterate. Any advice is welcome.”

“We now use adaware and xoftspy. Adaware is pretty much free, xoftspy is $40.00.”

“is that something I can download from somewhere?”

“I've been using a free copy of Spy Sweeper.

Spy
Sweeper ”

“Adaware is from Lavasoft.com and xoftspt is from paretologic.com.”

“treebait - Why is xoftspt worth the $40. Is it so much better?”

“Don't know yet, I've used it twice. HOnestly, I'd just stick with the adaware stuff.”

“thanks. I'll be checking those out”

“vicsaw - I use the free version of adaware. Pretty easy but slow to run on my old home computer.”

“The 2004 version of Norton AntiVirus scans fors spyware when you do a disc scan but it doesn't catch as many as Ad-aware.

Download Ad-aware

Make sure you update it regularly by clicking on "check for updates now" after you install it.”