Am I a Spam Zombie?

ReallyCurious asks: "Recently, I've noticed a lot of junk email in my inbox reporting 'Mail delivery failure' or 'Undeliverable'. Some of these had documents attached, so I figured this was just a worm variant. But these messages keep coming. I worry that my machine has been turned into a 'Spam Zombie'. I don't see any suspicious processes running, but maybe it only runs for a few seconds, and at irregular times. I run a Windows 98 laptop, sometimes wirelessly connected to broadband (a few hours a day, on average), but I had to remove my virus software years ago because it was locking my system up, so I'm wide open. I've tried to be a good citizen and have been shopping for new virus software, but prices are running $40-$70, and most of these are just for upgrades (not even counting the mandatory 'subscriptions')! Is there an open or free virus fighting solution that's reliable and available for Windows? I'd be happy to run it ASAP."

Comments

Re:Another stupid ask slashdot

[feidaykin]

Elitist attitudes like this are always amusing to me... Requests for this guy to search google don't answer his question... He wants to know what we, a group of tech savvy folk, recommend. It's harder for google to answer that directly than a simple ask slashdot. To all the moaners out there, stop reading Ask Slashdot or just stop reading the site alltogether. Questions like these are how people learn, and serve as starting point for disscusion here.

We should never insult folks for asking "stupid" questions, but rather admire the courage it took to ask.

I don't get it....

[Apreche]

OK. I'm a dual booting guy. Obviously my linux, which I use mostly, has no problems. However, my windows install also has no problems. I only got a virus once ever because after a clean XP install a worm got to me before I got to windowsupdate.

The point is that you do NOT need anti-virus software. Anti-virus anti-spyware software should be used only to cleanup already busted systems. Your system cannot be infected if you take proper care to prevent it. Even if you are running windows on a cable modem all day.

1) NEVER download an e-mail attachment.
2) Use Firefox instead of IE.
3) Use Thunderbird instead of Outlook
4) Do NOT visit untrustworthy websites
5) Do NOT download any software from the internet and install it. Even if it looks trusty from tucows or download.com do a google search to see if it it spyware first.
6) Have a firewall like zone alarm or sygate, or better have another computer between you and the net with a firewall on it. Or have a hardware firewall. Proper network level security keeps the worms out almost guaranteed.
7) If you have wireless lock it down. You don't want a drive by person to start sending spam out your pipe.
8) DO get all the windows updates that are security fixes. The ones that aren't security fixes you can choose to get or not get at your own discretion.

If you do those things then there is almost no way you can get hit. It's really that simple. And if you DO get hit, its usually easier to re-install due to the degrading nature of windows. Any windows install, even a clean one, falls apart over time. The registry fills with more and more junk. Improperly uninstalled apps leave files behind here and there. Hidden variables change and are not changed back. Even the cleanest installs seem to last at most 18 to 24 months except in very controlled business environments.

Dont pay for anti-virus software, its a ripoff. Just re-install and then take proper preventative measures so it doesn't happen again.

Re:I don't get it....

[R2.0]

"Microsoft have released three (3!) major desktop operating system revisions since then"

Windows ME: Oh, it was major, alright - a major failure. The "Upgrade" path at the time was to revert Back to 98SE.

Windows 2000: Remember, this was marketed as "not for home use". That was what ME was for. 2000 wouldn't support many legacy apps.

So there has really only been 1 major desktop OS revision that is relevant, and given XP's poor rep, there are plenty of reasons not to upgrade.

Also, the comparison between then and now isn't valid. A large number of the exploits now target services in 2000 & XP that 98 doesn't have.

98 certainly isn't state of the art, but I don't know that I'd call 2000 or XP that either. Your most compelling argument seems to be "98 is OLD!!"

BFD.

Most likely a 'Joe-Job'...Ask your ISP about SPF

[rthille]

Since the SMTP protocol doesn't have any authentication of the sender (except within an ISP/Domain with SMTP-AUTH), it's easy for a spammer/virus to send mail pretending to be you. That's called a 'joe-job' after one of the early occurrences of it.
A recently proposed solution (though not without it's problems) is SPF (Sender Policy Framework) http://spf.pobox.com/ where a domain owner can publish the list of servers which are authorized to send mail as being from a user of their domain.
Until it's widely deployed, not just on the publishing side, but on the checking side, it won't be real useful. However it's nearly trivial for the DNS owner to publish the records and since big ISPs like AOL and Yahoo are starting to check them it does protect you from being Joe-Jobbed to a large number of mailboxes.