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Spyware on One in Twenty Computers?

Posted by michael on from the PEBKAC dept.

SpaceDonkey writes "New Scientist reports that researchers at the University of Washington carried out a scan of the campus network for signs of spyware. They found spyware lurking on more than one in 20 machines and also discovered a serious vulnerability in two of the four spyware programs they looked for."

2 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That seems like a low percentage by wfberg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's a quick test. Ask the user if they've ever heard of SpyBot or AdAware. If the answer is unsatisfactory, they've got spyware. That includes your mom.

    5% is WAY low. Even I got infected (an app on tucows was listed as freeware, but turned out to be ad/spyware), even if you don't coun't cookies and GUIDs..

    Did I mention that AOL Instant Messenger now comes with spyware? That re-installs itself? And adds "free.aol.com" to IE's "trusted zone" so new stuff installs *without a prompt or warning*.

    --
    SCO employee? Check out the bounty
  2. Re:Spyware flaw by rixstep · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Something too many seem to find too easy to forget: there's a big world out there outside that Microsoft window...

    A. Most Unix systems won't get infected and cannot be infected. Not only is it more difficult, the spyware perps write this stuff specifically for Windows.

    B. There would seem to be an assumption here that 'all computers (in the world) run Microsoft Windows'.

    C. Ad-aware does as well as an automated tool can do (hopefully), but it cannot kill the latest spyware variant, the automatic cloning program. These programs are scheduled to make multiple copies of themselves with different names and be deposited in different directories and then look out for each other. Should any one of them disappear, the others will quickly clone and replace the missing file and launch it again. Further, they incessantly monitor Windows Registry activity, and as soon as their 'autostart' (in one of the 'Run' keys) is removed, they will immediately replace it. As Ad-aware cannot deal with spyware that fights back like this, Ad-aware cannot defeat them.

    D. A better estimate is not that one in ten Microsoft Windows computers is infected, but that a greater number are infected perhaps tens of times with thirty - forty spyware programs all competing for CPU. We recently had a customer completely oblivious to the issue until his XP idled at 100% CPU - that's how bad it becomes, through Windows being so easily exploitable, and through the average Windows Joe being so clueless.