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Spyware Becoming Worst Tech Support Problem
teknurd writes "Wired has an article about the growing problem of computer users having to call tech support to get help removing all of the spyware on their computers. 'The fast-growing phenomenon is already responsible for more than 12 percent of all technical support calls in Dell's consumer hardware division, the biggest category of complaints this year, company representatives said.' Personally, I have had to remove this plague from the computers of several friends and family members."
Im the IT manager for a 100+ person software compandy (actually, the ONLY IT person...)
Over the last 6 months, I've had to spend more and more time cleaning this crap off peoples machines. I've got it down to a science, though - I keep a disk around with a whole lot of useful tools on it such as:
Spybot search and destroy
stinger
all windows XP / 2000 patches since the latest SP
spywareblaster
and others
Takes me about 15 minutes to clean a machine now. Of course, that is 15 minutes that I could be doing something USEFUL...
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
Spybot Search & Destroy [Best spyware cleaner IMHO, also immunizes against re-installation]
Javacool's Spyware Blaster [works well in conjunction with Spybot]
I used to use Lavasoft's AdAware but after it wasn't updated for a while someone recommended Spybot which I've stuck with.
Trolling is a art,
http://www.spybot.info . That's all it takes.
When you're Joe Blow at home, that's fine. But when you administer dozens, hundreds, thousands of Win boxes and you can't automate installing/configuring/running Spybot, things are a bit different.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
(Come on, didn't people see this coming when Microsoft came up with ActiveX back in the day?)
sulli
RTFJ.
get on it Symantec etc. this getting to be as big if not a bigger problem than viruses. All the computers of family and friends are rife with this stuff, and they won't stump for Ad-aware pro as well as AV sw
I've got some photographs, I'd like to show them to you. Though you don't know the girls You'll recognise the view..
Personally, I have had to remove this plague from the computers of several friends and family members.
Not to sound snide, but this is exactly why all my family & close friends run Macs now. It's easier on them, and it's a hell of a lot easier on me, since now I don't have to stop over, run Adaware, and clean their systems for them.
You forget that the user can still download and install WeatherBug, Precision Date Time Manager, and many other helpful products. Using an alternative browser does not prevent this action.
For some reason a lot of people seem to believe that using Mozilla/Firefox/Opera makes their box invincible. It's a good start, but should only be one layer of your security.
In the last couple of months I've seen four or five computers that were rendered completely useless by spyware. The owners literally could not open their browser and get on the web.
Many of the newer programs should not really be called "spyware". They are really a form of hijack-ware. They seize control of a users browser and send up an endless stream of ads.
And no, the average user will never be able to cope with this. Most people just want to buy a computer and use it. They are no more interested in learning how to maintain a computer than they are in learning auto maintenance. It's up to the computer industry to deliver usable products to the end user.
I don't understand the problem.
My wife is relatively computer literate. But it comes down to a simple rule.
Don't download anything, don't install anything. Ignore all those taskbars and toolbars and toys.
we've had no trouble.
If you're an educated user, shoring up your home network is extremely simple:
1) Install a hardware firewall.
2) Install a software firewall.
3) Install a quality antivirus program.
4) Install Ad-Aware - preferably the Pro version with Ad-Watch.
5) Install Spybot.
The problem is that if you have family or friends that don't know anything about computers and don't seem to care to learn, doing the above will help you out temporarily... and then cause you a huge amount of problems on Windows.
For example, every time the software firewall asks them to approve a connection, they'll either always deny them (screwing up their software) or approve them (screwing up their security). They'll be upset when they can't use a program because it needs ports opened on the firewall. If you show them how to open ports up, they'll eventually just open ALL ports, thinking "now I won't have to worry about doing it every time a new program wants new ports available". The other option is not to tell them how to do this and just do it for them. You are now their bitch.
The other problem is that they'll want to install applications. In Windows, you can set several user levels. You can set a very restricted one that doesn't let users install software or access/modify any documents but their own. Then there's a level that will let them install software and use all documents. Then there's the full power user, backup user and admin user levels.
For security purposes, you would of course want to set their account to a level that will not allow them to install software. Otherwise they're going to be installing every stupid spyware riddled, adware plagued, malicious, wasteful, resource-eating piece of shit they come across. So, now every time they want to install a program, they're going to come to you. You're their bitch.
So the only way to achieve true security is to prevent them from doing anything they really want to do and now you're going to be bothered by every person that you've set up every time one of them wants to install a program or open up some ports. Every time they want to install a game, application, office software, utility, etc.
It's a hassle just dealing with this for one person. Now imagine if your grandmother, an uncle, your mom, two siblings, a neighbor, a girlfriend and two family friends all have you on the hook like this? It never ends. And then people wonder why techies are becoming more and more reluctant to help and more abrasive. Look, it's like being a car mechanic. As a car mechanic, I would not expect my friends to repair their own engine block or diagnose and fix other complex problems - but I certainly expect them to fill their own gas tank, change their own oil, refill their wiper fluid, check and refill their power steering, check and fill their tires, replace signal lights, screw on their license plates, adjust their rear-view mirors and side mirrors and adjust their seats into position.
However, for people who aren't willing (or maybe can't in the case of some elderly people who just can't fathom the concepts) to learn the basics, you'll find that if you don't help them they will end up with myriad of crap on their machines. Dozens of viruses, spyware, programs running in the background to steal resources and processing time, adware programs that pop-up crap all the time, hijacked browsers, three p2p networks starting at launch time and running in the background (eating up memory, cpu, storage, bandwidth), p2p utilities that go with them, "weatherbug" software, msn, yahoo, aim and others, and countless other things. I've seen people with so much fucking shit on their machines like the above mentioned that their machines would start-up and then die, crash or reboot before finishing displaying the desktop. Just too much crap running.
It isn't my job to baby people, teach them every little thing and care for them. They can buy books, play around and learn on their own just like the rest of us had to. If you can't appr
My wife's a librarian, and she's one of the few people I know who I'd let use the computer without my supervision.
Just tell your wife that she could get fired by installing that crap. It's like letting someone into the building to spraypaint the walls. Company computers aren't yours, and installing crap is akin to damaging company property.
I mean, you wouldn't take a sledgehammer to a company printer or fax machine, would you? (insert obligatory Office Space joke here)
Are we computer specialist really any better than the Anti-Virus camp? We make money on both sides of this equation. Were becoming like lawyers.
What are the worst offenders? Those programs offering either "cute" or "informative". Desktop wallpaper, custom cursors, so many toolbars and geegaws to make your browser look like CNN's Headline News. A time updater. A date updater. A weather notifier. Hate to tell you, but I have a watch, a calendar, a radio, and a window. Between these four things, I think I'll know what the day/time is and what weather is coming.
What would these same users do if they drove up to a street corner and there was somebody waiting to plaster their car with a flashy bumper sticker in exchange for their friends' email addresses? I would hope that these folks would just drive away. So why does it work on a computer screen?
Hell, half the problems business have could be solved if companies just banned access to all the websites that produce these programs. Can't download Weatherbug or Webshots if you can't get to the websites in the first place. No need to visit each individual computer if you can use the firewall to do your job for you. Anyone have a list of those evil IP addresses they'd like to share? (and by "evil" I mean, well, "evil")
Windows has the "Run As..." capability (right click any app, select Run As... and enter the administrator account), so that somewhat simulates doing a 'su' in linux.
But I totally agree that many application developers don't understand the concept of running at the least priviledge necessary. So many apps write their config to C:\Program File\APP\ and HKLM, which requires elevated access, instead of writing to C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings and HKLU. Hopefully more people will read 'Writing Secure Code' (from MS, ironically), and windows apps will improve.
Folks have been trained since the DOS days that they just turn on their computer and use it. Programs have been written for that environment with this assumption in mind (no user-admin privilage distinction).
So the "Problem" is more Microsoft's failure than it is the users failure. Users use, and are taught how to use. Microsoft perpetrated the "run as admin always" problem, and they directly trained (through the use of their software) vast armies of average users and software developers to embrace this road as the norm and the expected software "reality". Unfortunately it is was a disasterous mistake in many regards (virii, worms, spyware, blah blah)
They need to fix this basic architecture problem, and this will hurt users (learning curve, potential invalidation of older software) and the software industry (re-tooling their software code).
Garbage in, Garbage out?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
If you're assuming the user isn't stupid then perhaps you haven't worked very long in IT ;)
I liken our users to toddlers. If there is any way, no matter how ridiculous, for a toddler to injure himself with a toy, he will do it. After only 6 months in IT, I see the user as a toddler and computers as their toys.
I tell them time and again that their Windows XP computers synchronize their time with our servers, but they still install Gator's time manager because the banner says "OH NO YOUR COMPUTER CLOCK COULD BE WRONG!!! IF YOU DON'T INSTALL OUR SOFTWARE YOU SUPPORT TERRORISM!!!" As many posters in this thread have stated, you tell them time and again that MyComet cursor and all those goodies are what makes their computer run slow, but by the week's end you will return because they have installed it again and now their box is hosed.
It's even worse when the computers on the production line turn up with these things. The cost of a stopped line per minute is quite a good bit more than my annual salary. Whoever wrote Sasser owes me a lunch break, because I had to skip it to deal with infected machines on the line. (Yeah yeah, "You should have patched sooner". No one mentions the issues that were reported with early patchers, such as frozen computers, 100% CPU usage, and inability to log in to Windows. We chose to wait until the issues were settled, and it bit us. What good is an uninstall, Mr. Anderson, if you can't boot your box?)_
Or adaware or hijack this, yadda yadda...
Problem is, we're talking about computers owned by the unwashed masses (at least in my tech support job). These are people that call up with a chip on their shoulder demanding that their ISP fix what has happened to their computer. Wonderful ads lik "Earthlink with a free Pop-Up blocker" etc. have now in the perception shifted the responsibility of parasite problems onto the ISP.
A lot of these people don't understand the basic directory structure or how to find something that's been downloaded onto their computer, and walking them through a download of a parasite removal tool, updating it, running it, and then guiding them through what to do with what it has found can EASILY turn into a 2-hour procedure. Most of us have more important shit to do than that. Double that amount of time if they don't have two phone lines and/or cannot be connected to the internet. Any coincidental problems are blamed on your removal tool.
Also, the latest trend i'm seeing, is people calling up to complain about all these popup ads and homepage hijackings/search pages thrown in. You start pointing to all the free games they've downloaded, bonzai buddy, Desktop Calendar, Weatherbug, etc, and you are met with "but i LIKE having my weather updates, i LIKE having my Calendar there" etc.
THEY WILL REFUSE TO LET YOU HELP THEM
Doesn't stop them from still calling you up "i'm still having a problem with all these popups..."
Most machines i've cleaned up (like HUNDREDS of parasites), i'll hand it back to them and tell them what not to do again, and they are in the exact same state in a week's time. They simply go and install all the same crap they had before.
I was warned by many that doing Tech Support for a living was a burnout job, and borderline emotional abuse. But the last couple years of parasites have made it pure insanity. Tech Support is at a whole new low...
"i need to find a new job" is an understatement.
do() || do_not();
Why are your users allowed to install software? The evidence supports locking down user machines to doing tasks for work only, because they have abused the previous system.
And why are critical systems running an insecure OS with a long colourful history of security vulnerabilities? In fact any machine that doesn't need to be connected to a network shouldn't be.
If you have disk imaging software (Drive Image, etc.), after updating everything make an image and burn to CD. The next time you have to redo his system (and it sounds innevitable) just blast back to the base image.
Drink blood - 50 trillion mosquitoes can't be wrong.
1) Install a hardware firewall.
2) Install a software firewall.
3) Install a quality antivirus program.
4) Install Ad-Aware - preferably the Pro version with Ad-Watch.
5) Install Spybot.
Besides the 4+ hours of work that this entails, the specialized knowledge and cash required, a five item list like this is hardly what I would term "extremely easy."
In fact, it's more like saying "Any educated person can boost the performance of his car in 5 easy steps! Just install a turbocharger..."
And it's also worth noting that installing two firewalls like that is paranoid and stupid. Especially if the first one isn't even forwarding ports, something some 90% of computer users don't even need to do. And if you are forwarding ports, then what are you going to do on the client machine? Block those ports? What was the point of forwarding them again?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
> On MacOS X, user processes pop up a dialog box asking for an administration password when installing new software.
And users react in one of two ways, if not both:
a) they routinely put in the password for everything
b) they bitch about "this is stupid, why can't it be like windows where I never have to enter a password" and if they're really troublesome, they'll find a program that will enter their password FOR them
This is the same reason I roll my eyes at "Linux has user accounts and only one root so it is perfectly secure" posts. Most people would then run, day-to-day, as root. People would still install every trojan horsed piece of shit that comes along.
It doesn't matter how many locks you have if you hate unlocking them, so you leave them open.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
I think it needs to be reiterated: It's a good start.
It's a huge first step. I now run firefox, it's the default browser on my windows box. If you've read my comments in the past, I've always been a fan of I.E., and I still am, to be honest with you. I think I.E. is faster, and renders things better than Firefox, firefox (even though it's no where near moz's bloat) still uses more memory, plus there's this annoying javascript transparent thing that Firefox doesn't deal with well, and it just has several little annoying things I don't like.
BUT.
After casual surfing the web (with google toolbar installed to block popups) on I.E. a couple of months ago, I proceeded to get spyware left and right that I didn't even know about! The damn javascript buffer overflow that installs cool web search got me. I had no idea I got it until I ran adaware. Then I got some freaking spyware bug that deleted windows media player and replaced it with a spyware app or a virus or something.
This is just from CASUAL web surfing. I didn't download anything, I didn't run anything, I never clicked "ok" on any of the "you are about to download and install 'CLICK HERE TO ACCEPT OUR AGREEMENT'" things. This was all exploits that hijacked my browser and installed spyware.
Fuck. That.
Firefox only has two advantages over IE+google toolbar: Tabbed Browsing (which i'm starting to like), and security. Until recently, they weren't reason enough to switch. Now, they are.
So, it needs to be pointed out: Yes, there are still ways to get spyware even when running firefox. It's true. BUT, firefox is a HUGE first step. I don't have anything worse than a few tracking cookies now.
AND it needs to be said: It does not mean you're a n00b l00ser if you run I.E. and you get spyware. It's nothing you did wrong. Even powerusers, whatever that means, still get spyware in I.E. You don't have to click to install anymore. It used to be enough to know that you shouldn't download and run stuff that you didn't know what it did. It's not anymore.
~Will
sig?
That really isn't four hours worth of work. If it's your first time, it might be - but I'm not talking about how extremely easy it is for grandma. I'm talking about how easy it is, in the grand scheme of things. Certainly, to do the above you would need to have some rudimentary education about the machine in front of you to perform those five steps - but in my experience, only those who have that education (beyond how to login, surf and manipulate the max/min/close window buttons) are even aware of the problem and the steps needed to handle it.
It isn't as difficult as you seem to suggest, though. A hardware firewall is common sense and even your ISP will instruct you to install one when you pick up your cable or DSL modem (or when they come out to install it). Not knowing you need a hardware firewall is like not knowing you need to buy a modem to use the internet. And they aren't that expensive. A high quality new one is about $80. A decent one can be had for $50. Basic installation is simple. Plug it in, change the admin password. Done.
Installing an antivirus program is also simple and has been drilled into every user. Most computers come with one, even if it's only a trial subscription. You can get decent ones for free (Grisoft's AVG, for example). They're easy to configure and usually have adequate walk-throughs.
Ad-Aware is easy to install and free. Same with Spybot. You might need to read a little before making full use of them, but just having them installed offers more security than not having them at all.
As for having both a hardware firewall and a software firewall - sure it's paranoid. The thing is that software firewalls are inadequate and ineffective. If you allow what you think is a legitimate program to have acces to the net (a windows service or MSIE for example), you may also be unwittingly allowing a sub-component to piggy-back with it.
I don't expect a software firewall to protect me or the family/friends I install them for. I like having one installed so I can see what applications are trying to get out. If something strange is trying to get out and it hasn't been caught by Ad-Aware, SpyBot or AVG/Kaspersky - I want to know about it. I could watch a netstat all day long - or I could just watch for pop-up notification sin the system tray.
In fact, it's more like saying "Any educated person can boost the performance of his car in 5 easy steps! Just install a turbocharger..."
But it isn't. This isn't about boosting your performance. This is about knowing to lock your car's doors, not locking your keys in the car, not leaving your keys in the ignition or the car running while you stop at 7-11, changing your oil regularly, checking the tire pressure occasionally, keeping your tags up to date and possibly having a car-alarm installed.
Any educated person should know not to drive their Lexus through the worst part of town, stop in front of a 7-11 with a bunch of crackheads standing outside by the pay-phones and leaving their keys in the car and the engine running while they go into the store and buy a coke and nachos.
I saw in a couple of comments that folks referred users off to their ISP for help removing these items.
DON'T! Please!
A comparison I had to use yesterday with a customer because they were getting angry that we(ISP) would not help them was:
If you have a car, don't maintain it, ignore the recall notices, drive without your seatbelt and slam it into park while still moving, you're going to have an accident or break the damn thing.
Do not call the DOT/highway department because of it. We can't and are not going to help you.
An ISP's job it to provided a customer an internet connection. Not to be their free tech bitches for any and every issue that comes along. We view virii and spyware as OS issues and not the ISP's connectivity issue.
Our qualifying test is.....if your computer was in perfect working order, can you get on the internet. If it's not.....call us back when it is and we'll help you with the internet.
That may sound a little customer unfriendly but when queue hold times are over 30 minutes and every customer is pissed off, you have to draw the line somewhere.
If we fail to hold computer users responsible for their own actions, we are enablers of the behaviors we are complaining about.
I try to teach them how to take care of it themselves, and they have no interest in learning.
Most lawyer tasks are the same, easy to do yourself, but there's a whole bunch of info to learn before you can get it right. I have no interest in learning law-craft.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Sometimes, that's impossible. Try to syncronize a Palm Pilot or compatible with Outlook when you're not running as a system adminstrator under XP. It won't work.
The unfortunate thing is that those people who have PP's are often the ones paying your salary, and they would not be happy with the idea that they might be blocked from updating them.
Trying to argue security with them is (usually) pointless - they've already made several bad security decisions (Windows servers, Exchange running on those servers, Outlook running on the local machine), so your piddly little concerns with security are unimportant!