Malware, spyware, everywhere
Its amazing: I’m spending up to 90% of my time fixing computers with Malware/spyware infections.
Whats even more amazing is that I’m seeing more & more systems becoming infected despite running anti-malware software. Ive seen a system recently that had ad-aware, spyware doctor, spybot S&D… but ewido (http://www.ewido.net/en/) still found over 450 infected objects (about 350 were just cookies, but that still ads up to 100 objects, or about 6 different “nasty” malware applications…
Is it just me, or are malware infections on the rise?
Although ewido is currently my primary malware detector, it did give me a false-positive about 1 week ago (causing me to waste a lot of time chasing a “ghost” malware app.). Your milage may vary.
My own systems seem ok, but then I’m behind a NAT router, running outpost firewall (http://www.agnitum.com/) on my main system, and also running antivir (http://www.free-av.com/) and winpatrol (http://www.winpatrol.com) and I also update windows XP every month or two. Oddly, I don’t run any background malware scanner. I occasionally run ad-aware (http://www.lavasoft.com/) and ewido, but they only find the occasional bad cookie.
I guess part of the solution is that I use an unconvetional email clients:
the bat! (http://www.ritlabs.com/) and foxmail, so I’m not so vunrable to many email malware.
I also use a relativley little known browser called Maxthon, which does an excellent job at blocking popups & bad sites.
In fact, I have a laptop on my network, which doesn’t have a firewall, (the windows xp firewall is disabled), it doesn’t have any anti virus & anti-malware software… just winpatrol (and it never finds anything wrong), and the occasional windows update.
Maybe I’m just lucky, & maybe I’m just familiar with the processes running within task manager…
Ive also found that it doesnt matter how many programs and stuff you have, its also a matter of knowing how to use them, and then again what your surfing on the web and downloading also makes a big diffrence.
I use ad-aware and s&d spybot, with norton 2005 plus windows updates etc, and i usually run all the progs once a week which very rarely picks up anything.
I to am behind a nat firewall, plus i use sygate firewall, i know it sounds like a lot to some but i never really see any of them, they usually run in the background when ever they are scheduled to go, updates are in background by prompt as well, all in all it makes a very good system.
Like i said though, if your always on websites etc with a “higher” possibilty of containing these “diseases”, then your more likely to obtain them!
I’ve recently started using (on my system & on clients computers) something called “spyware blaster” Its nice in that it is not memory resident… it just adds restricted “malware” sites to IE’s blocked sites, and also blocks known activeX based spyware downloads & spyware ads & tracking cookies.
It doesn’t remove malware, but seems damn good at preventing it getting a foothold.