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On the Prevalence and Removal of Spyware?

Posted by Cliff on from the removal-of-those-pesky-spytraps dept.

oo7tushar asks: "There's a lot of spyware out there these days. As a Windows/Linux user I'm concerned about what spyware is installed on my machines and I'm very concerned about this issue when it comes to Windows. A few questions for the masses: What are the most common spying applications that are installed? How do I get rid of them without getting rid of the parent application? Have you encountered spyware on Linux?"

11 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Removing Spyware by Innomi · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a program called AdAware which will automaticly remove spyware from your system. Some programs though, refuse to run if thier spyware is missing. Adware: http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?5000000038314

    1. Re:Removing Spyware by |_uke · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is good software. I have used it for about a year now. There are a few things that it wont detect but it generally does a good job.

      Ad Aware does the following, plus more:

      * Removes registery settings belonging to Ad software.

      * Removes Ad software

      * Removes cookies from ad sites

      etc

      it works pretty well

      --
      Luke
    2. Re:Removing Spyware by OctaneZ · · Score: 3, Informative

      I can't say enough good things about AdAware, I have recommeneded it or installed it on all of my friends machines (who for all intents and purposes I support). NEarly every "average" user has installed something that came with spyware. Some people noticed marked improvements in their systems speed after having 20-30 spyware aps removed. AdAware is developed by Lava Soft.
      -OZ

  2. Watching for Spyware by jayers · · Score: 5, Informative

    Spyware needs to communicate what it is spying. A personal firewall on your machine and some understanding of what your machine should be sending out to others and receiving in can be surprisingly effective in telling you about things happening on your machine. A good one lets you set up default acceptance for your normal stuff and so you see only exceptions.

    1. Re:Watching for Spyware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yeah, but if you were writing a spy-ware program, would you use a non-standard port to send it out? I'd just send it over HTTP on port 80. Or better yet, HTTPS on 443, so no content-sniffing could be done on it. Would you be willing to stop all web browsing traffic leaving your home/site/corporation?


      Your malware still won't work. The better Windows firewalls (ZoneAlarm and Tiny Personal Firewall) do an MD5 check on the executable before allowing traffic. If you patch the executable or try to access a port which is allowed to only one process, the activity will be blocked and/or logged, depending on your firewall rules.

      This is one added layer of security that an external firewall cannot have. Only client-native software can authoritatively check the process generating the network activity. External firewalls block only behaviour, not process-owners. Ideally, you want both, but for a Windows client, both ZA and TPF work well.
  3. Try Who's Watching Me by YoshiR · · Score: 4, Informative

    Spyware detection software. www.trapware.com

  4. Re:PCMagazine... by Eagle7 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just remembered, one of the products they recommended was Evidence Eliminator by Robin Hood software.

    --
    _sig_ is away
  5. AdAware is cool, but... by fm6 · · Score: 4, Informative
    Some programs though, refuse to run if thier spyware is missing.
    Not the clever ones. Gator just goes ahead and re-installs the spyware. Which is why I'm back to filling in my own forms.

    I'm actually pretty sloppy about privacy. But a lot of spyware -- including Gator's -- hooks into Explorer and other shell programs at a very basic level. Results range from an irritating loss of response to maddening crashes and lockups.

    AdAware is quite good. But you also need Ref-Update (to keep your AdAware signature file current) and Ad-Search (to help avoid downloading spyware in the first place). All three available here.

  6. A Website for SpyWare by VegeBrain · · Score: 2, Informative
    This website has an excellent information on SpyWare. It tells what SpyWare is, gives examples of SpyWare they've found so far and how to remove it manually. If you don't want to remove it manually there are linkts to commercial software to remove it.

    I used this website to kill several SpyWare programs on my Windows machine at work. So far they don't mention any SpyWare software for Linux.

  7. Re:PCMagazine... by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Informative

    Read this before you buy or use the program:

    http://www.radsoft.net/resources/software/review s/ ee/

    They're notorious spammers, and tests showed it's not all that effective.

    D

  8. Re:Label them as a VIRUS... by Firefly1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Good call... in fact, the cexx.org folks say that this is already happening in some cases. To complement this, I would also suggest a campaign for concise and comprehensible EULAs that explicitly list any and all of these 'extras'. These 'extras' should, of course, then be readily and entirely uninstallable, and not a requisite for the functioning of whatever program the user has downloaded.

    --
    - White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts