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If you’re a Windows user of any stripe, you’ve probably gotten a spyware infection at one time or another. The sudden and unexpected appearance of popup windows on your screen advertising things you’d never thought of buying, or warning that your computer is under attack and that you need to download this program now, etc., are usually early warning signs. Or perhaps your antivirus program warns that you have w32.trojan.badstuff and then tells you it can do nothing about it. Or maybe you start having problems with your Internet connection or your system slows way down.
At first, you go straight to the denial stage. Just as when you feel a real cold coming on, you think you’re going to will it to go away. And you can’t imagine why you’re being attacked because you never do anything to invite bad things into your system. In fact, you’re quite careful about it. Just like avoiding that cold.
Well,for the moment, how you got it doesn’t matter. What matters is what are you going to do about it, and how are you going to keep it from happening again. We’ll deal with that in a little bit, but first let’s have a quick lesson on what spyware is and why people do these things to nice folks like us.
For an absolutely exhaustive discussion of spyware I commend to you the following article from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spyware. The article defines spyware as follows: “Spyware is computer software that is installed surreptitiously on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent. “
We’ll discuss how spyware can get on your computer “without your informed consent”, but let’s consider some of the things it can do once it gets there. It can:
• Monitor what you’re doing on your computer
• Collect personal information concerning your web browsing habits
• Interfere with or control your Internet connection
• Install other software on your computer
• Allow your computer to be remotely controlled to distribute spam and other data
• Modify your system settings
• Redirect your web browser to other websites
Now you might wonder why your antivirus program didn’t catch this spyware thing. Well, first of all, spyware isn’t a virus or a worm. It’s also not adware which is another discussion altogether. What these terms have in common is that they all refer to software applications. But an antivirus program is not…well…programmed to fight spyware. Some antivirus programs are starting to get better at detecting spyware but not removing it. And here’s another little tidbit. You know how you’re antivirus programs are always getting updates. That’s when those programs are just learning about all the new infections that have been out there hunting you down for several days now. Meanwhile they couldn’t protect you from these new nasties because they didn’t even know they existed.
So why are these people infecting our machines? Well, you can read the Wikipedia article for the long story, but the short story is there’s money in it. From advertising dollars to theft of copyrighted material, there’s lots and lots of money in it. Who’s most vulnerable? Unfortunately it’s Windows users, especially those who use Internet Explorer. That’s why you get those updates every Tuesday so Microsoft can patch yet another series of security holes in their software.
OK, so you have an infection, what do you do? Well, this is actually pretty easy. You have two choices. The first is to back up all of your data, record your settings, etc., and reformat your hard drive. Reinstall Windows. Reinstall all your programs and restore your data. Yikes! Sounds like radical surgery. Well, knowledgeable folks like Leo Laporte will tell you that this is the only way to be absolutely sure that your infection is gone.
However, there are times when it may be impractical to reformat. Don’t forget that you will need the original installation disks for all your programs, including Windows, and all the licenses and key codes to make them work for more than 30 days. And you’ll need drivers for that hardware your running as well. In some cases your system may have shipped with a System Recovery disk which make things easier. But if you are determined to try to cure the patient yourself, here’s what I recommend.
Browse over to MajorGeeks. Go to the Forums. Create a registration account for yourself. It’s free, easy and safe. Go to the malware forum and read the STICKY post called README & RUNME FIRST by Major Attitude. Yeah, it’s kind of fun. Now here’s the thing. You must follow his instructions to the letter in exactly the order he tells you. Print the instructions out if you need to. (Recommended) If you follow the instructions carefully, exactly as outlined and you still have a problem, you can submit your scanning logs and they will help you for free. I can’t stress this enough. Don’t Skip Anything!
And I guess a third remedy would be to call a computer professional. Hey, that’s me!
OK, so you’ve cured your infection. How do you keep it from coming back? Here are a few tips:
• Make sure Automatic Updates are turned on in Windows and always install them.
• Make sure you’re antivirus is up to date. Run a manual scan once a week.
• Use the programs referred to in the Major Geeks Malware Removal Forum. Not all of them at once! Start with Spybot. Keep it up to date and scan once a week. If you have kids you might want to add SuperAntispyware which scans in the background all the time. Don’t ever download, install or use any other programs not mentioned on MajorGeeks. Not ever!!
• Don’t install memory enhancers, Internet speed improvers, hard drive tuneup programs, registry cleaners or any other snake oil products until you check with your favorite computer professional. Yeah, that’d be me.
• Now I know you’re all good boys and girls, but in my opinion, about 90% of your spyware comes from porn sites and using file sharing programs like Limewire and Kazaa. Free music ain’t free, folks. Maybe your kids would like to pay for the next service call I have to make. Better they should buy their music on iTunes or Amazon.
• You can have all the software protection you can buy, but the number one preventer of spyware and other forms of computer malware is sitting in the chair in front of your computer screen. Don’t download and install software you don’t recognize. Never open an attachment in an email that comes from an unknown source. And never go to a website by clicking on a link in an email. Banks, online stores where you have accounts and other legitimate institutions don’t do business via email that requires you to give up any personal information.
OK, don’t mean to sound preachy, but a few precautions will reduce the cost of owning your computer and make your experience using it a happier one. It’s hard living in a technological world full of viruses, spyware, worms and spam. But by taking a few precautions, we can make this world happier and safer for all of us.
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