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The Average PC is Infested with Spyware

Posted by michael on from the gaaaaaaah dept.

WoodenRobot writes "This article claims that Earthlink have discovered that the average user's PC has 28 spyware programs on it. More details can be found on Earthlink's spyware auditing page." Compare to a university study. The FTC is hosting a Spyware Workshop.

23 of 556 comments (clear)

  1. Earthlink? How ironic. by jrj102 · · Score: 5, Funny

    In related news, a recent study found that the average computer user is an idiot. Film at 11.

    That's not fair, of course. For example, try searching for spyware removal software like "Spybot Search and Destroy." Almost all the links you'll find are for imposters that are themselves spyware. Evil.

    Earthlink has their own spyware removal sofware, but I'm amazed it doesn't get caught in an infinite loop installing and removing itself, since Earthlink's software includes spyware.

    --- JRJ

    --
    jrjBlog
    1. Re:Earthlink? How ironic. by maxbang · · Score: 5, Informative

      I used to be on Earthlink, until I became disgusted with their "support." The only spam I ever get now is from my old address with them. I don't know what their spyware removal is based on, but I know it didn't catch gator running on a friend's PC. Between that and the spam, I don't see myself going back to them in the future, or recommending them to anyone I know.

      --
      I also reply below your current threshold.
    2. Re:Earthlink? How ironic. by ninti · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would mod you down if I had the points, not because you disagree, but because you are a dick about it. If the information is wrong, you should be pointing the finger at BBC news, which the headline here is entirely consistant with. Yes, the Arstechnica article has a good point that the article is perhaps wrong, but that is hardly the fault of the slashdot editor. I nice "well, arstechnica has evidence that casts doubt on the validity of this article" would have served the purpose just as well, and you would not looked like an ass doing it. And posting a link would have been nice too like Link would have been nice too.

    3. Re:Earthlink? How ironic. by MattyCobb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not sure about Earthlink, but I worked for BellSouth and our install CD basically included spyware. It didnt have ads or anything like that and its main purpose (which it failed at, miserably) was simply to collect customer settings so that when they messed something up they could simply "revert" to their last known good settings. It collected no marketing or advertising info. At any rate, it was classified as spyware by Ad-Aware. So i suppose it all depends on your definition...

      --

      Matt
      You have 1 Moderator Point! Use it or lose it! Is that a threat? -vapid
    4. Re:Earthlink? How ironic. by rgmoore · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Take the car in for an oil change once every few thousand miles, make sure it gets its 10k/15k/20k/whatever k service, and keep the gas tank full, and 95% of the time it will run good for years, the other 5% there's nothing that they could do even if they knew how the thing worked.

      And the same thing would probably be true if people took the same attitude toward keeping their computer running that they do toward keeping their car running. People accept that cars are complicated and require routine service. They understand that if they're not competent to do the service themselves that it makes sense to pay a professional to do it for them. They're willing to plunk down some serious coin to get the thing fixed if/when it breaks.

      The problem is that many, if not most, people don't take the same attitude toward computers. They're encouraged to believe that computers are so easy to use that anyone can use and maintain one with little or no training. When problems do come up, they tend to try to solve them by asking a friend who is supposed to know this stuff what to do rather than spending money on a professional. Combine that attitude with deliberate attacks against computers by things like worms and spyware, and it should be no surprise that the average car is much better maintained than the average computer.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    5. Re:Earthlink? How ironic. by IthnkImParanoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The only reason I know how to care for my car is because it cost $15,000. The car I drove in college cost was a 15 year old POS I got for a couple hundred bucks so I could get groceries once a week, and I never changed the oil once. I drove on bald, half flat tires for a long time (I never went on the freeway, or over 45, so I didn't really care), and I let the radiator fluid (tap water) get really low on several occasions because of a slow leak.

      I didn't care. That car did what I needed it to do for as long as I needed to do it before I could afford a better one. In other words, it was exactly like a computer to most people.

      --
      It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
  2. slightly misleading... by David+E.+Smith · · Score: 5, Informative
    Note that of those 30 pieces of spyware per PC, 24 of them are labeled as "cookies."

    There's still a LOT of junkware/spyware/adware/malware/whatever out there, far more than there should be IMO, but it's not quite as bad as they let on. :-)

  3. It doesn't have to be this way... by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What can you say about adware infestations other than they can be prevented by using products such as AdAware, SpyBot, AdWatch (always running but it's not free), and other products that are free or at a nominal cost. I do disagree with this statement (sidebar in article) as I have seen PC's brought to a crawl by the adware that was using up most of their available RAM:

    While most spyware is adware-related and relatively benign, it's disturbing that over 300,000 of the more serious system monitors and Trojans were uncovered

    I don't think most adware is benign since it eats into available RAM. Some adware also affects application performance, or, worse yet, prevents applications from running. Anyway, I am, again, preaching to the choir.....

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
  4. How did they do this study? by Texas+Rose+on+Lava+L · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did they install spyware on people's computers to go in and report how much spyware they had?

    --

    Rank Presidents by th

  5. The thundering noise you hear... by willith · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...is ten million sysadmins and deskside support people all saying "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!" in unison.

  6. Confirms the obvious by lindec · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This confirms what I think most of us have known for a while. The average surfer using Internet Explorer or Kazaa (Overnet as well) is likely to be loaded with spyware. Kazaa alone can be held responsible for almost half of those infections I think. As one of the few knowledgable "computer guys" in my dorm, I spend a lot of time cleaning out mucked up computers. I see on average 10 or 15 nasty spyware programs, but I did see 1,500 programs and ActiveX goodies (I'd say maybe 200 of those were cookie warnings though) in this one computer I cleaned. The was apparently, an avid p0rn viewer with no popup protection or the like. Ugly... very ugly...

  7. This Is NEWS?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ask anybody who services PCs...there's not a machine around that isn't riddled with the stuff, but making a headline out of it is like shrieking about the existence of viruses.

  8. one solution is... by ErichTheWebGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ditch IE for Firefox. I just did 2 clients' computers today (running slow, yadayada) and guess what? One had 18 spyware trojans installed, the other had 64 (as well as a couple of viruses). Firefox (any Gecko-based browser) is not vulnerable to the crap that IE is. I always tell my clients to not use IE anymore. When they listen, they always have a better overall experience.

    --
    bash: rtfm: command not found
    1. Re:one solution is... by sampowers · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Something strange I noticed last night looking for lyrics on a popular site, is that I was prompted to install a "Free Access Plugin" firefox extension.

      I tried searching google to find it again, but the only thing I'm finding is a page in german, which I'm not entirely sure is what I'm talking about.

      If I were one of my users, I would have clicked Install, because I'd be jawdroppingly retarded.

      The XPInstall functionality is a tradeoff between security and convenience, but just like IE's install feature, it's going to be abused.

      Hopefully standard unix security stems the tide.

  9. Lets hear your records... by 222 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The most spyware i've ever cleaned off of a box was 877, as reported by adaware.
    The unfortunate soul was a windows ME box, so it wasnt destined for greatness even without the spyware.
    By the time i got there, opening a browser would cause the machine to reboot, and there was no "System" icon in the control panel. Oh yea, he was running AOL too...
    Beat that :p

  10. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  11. Spyware nuking my site! by gnuman99 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Some spyware kept accessing my IP address 216.194.67.61. But now I posted by own "ad" - it actually uses less bandwidth than the stupid 404 error as the spyware was just stupid and kept reloading wasting Gb per day.

    216.194.67.61

    Now the rate of spyware/adware requests is down from 2 per second to only 0.3 per second over the last few days :)

    Bwhahaha, doing my part in teaching the public :)

  12. Worst I've ever seen Part 1 by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This was on a university PC, running Windows 98 SE.

    Using Ad-Aware, it found, and I kid you not: 22,485 units of spyware.

    The machine was so infested, it couldn't connect to the Internet (throough the university T-1 lines) because of all the pop-ups, redirects and what not.

    In defense of the machine, 11 users had profiles on it, which under Win98, merely copied everything (spyware and all) to the new user. But it was astounding all the same.

    part Two

    Same university, brand spanking new P4 3.0 Ghz Dell for a big-shot professor.

    8,000 units. The professor would click "yes" to every pop-up that came her way, not knowing/caring/reading, what it did. Then complained why the brand new machine was slow and needed a new one.

    After removing the spyware, and explaining what had occured, she nodded sagely, and went about her business.

    Next day I get a call from her...same issue, tons of popups.

    She hadn't listened after all.

    It's times like these I wish people like that would be given a Mac or BeOS machine.

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
  13. Re:So which is it? by Alsier · · Score: 5, Funny

    19 computers have no spyware, 1 computer has 560.

  14. The average PC also has... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Windows
    Internet Explorer
    Outlook or Outlook Express

    Microsoft, when contacted, insisted there was no relationship

  15. Re:Good effort to fight spam and malware by malchus842 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's no doubt the survey is accurate - as an independant consultant, I deal with this all the time. I run Ad-Aware on badly behaving Windows boxes and show their 'owners' just what a mess they have. Record so far is 500+ items tagged by AdAware. Unreal.

    This problem is on par with SPAM and viruses, and consumes serious IT cycles to manage. My usual couse of action for any new client is: SOPHOS AntiVirus, pop-up blocker, AdAware, alternative browser (eg Netscape, Firebird), alternative email client (eg. thunderbird). Not to mention religious use of Windows Update, a strong permiter firewall and replacing NT/2000 servers with Linux boxes running SAMBA, themselves fully hardened agaisnt attack. Of course, SpamAssassin is a must on the mail server.

    It's a war. And I fight to win.

  16. No need to RTFA... by retro128 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...because a lot of my work is cleaning up those systems infested with spyware. And that's just my parents, co-workers, and friends' systems. My co-worker has a laptop that she telecommutes with, and her sister got a hold of that thing and loaded just about every cute freeware app she could grab on the 'Net. This thing was so loaded down with spyware that they were wrestling each other for control over Internet Explorer, and it wouldn't even browse. I don't remember exactly how many hits Ad Aware picked up, but it was several hundred.

    I also had a bad run in with new.net. My thoughts about those people would land me in jail if put into action. Read about these scumbags along with removal instructions here. I spent an hour trying to extricate it out of my mom's computer before finding this link. This thing has a DLL that literally ties itself into the TCP/IP stack of Windows, so removing it will disable TCP/IP. Just a slight problem, don't you think? Nothing like an untrusted third party app intercepting your TCP/IP calls and doing god knows what with them.

    I should mention that a different co-worker picked up CoolWebSearch, a particularly evil spyware app that resurrects itself even after you try to remove it with Ad-Aware. An awesome app called CWSShredder is available at http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html.
    Also located there is a HiJackThis, which scans regkeys commonly used by spyware and allows you to remove them. Be very careful with this app though, as legit keys are listed too.

    In light my experience, I shudder to think what Joe Sixpack must have on his system....

    Last thought: What gets my goat is how everyone's going after virus writers, but no one's touching these asshole spyware programmers. These programs DO interfere with system operations, are difficult to remove (some even actively interfere with ad-removal software), and run without the user's knowledge. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I simply must vent.

    --
    -R
  17. Re:Not far from truth by brandonY · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recommend Mozilla or Firefox. They block pop-ups, pop-unders, all potentially bad ActiveX controls, and just about every other form of spyware. If you act now, you can even get standards compliance thrown in for free!