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Every 5th Call At Dell Is Spyware-Related

Posted by timothy on from the yes-ma'am-that's-a-feature dept.

prostoalex writes "Financial Express quotes a Dell executive saying that spyware is installed on roughly 90% computers out there. Right now 20% of all Dell phone support calls are spyware-related. University of Washington research this March published a moderate estimate of 5.1% PCs running spyware."

10 of 559 comments (clear)

  1. To see if you have spyware... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... and get rid of it if you do...

    Spybot Search&Destroy http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
    and Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

    BTW, be sure to update the definitions or you're going to miss a lot of spyware.

    1. Re:To see if you have spyware... by 2TecTom · · Score: 4, Informative

      IMHO, Spybot & Ad-Aware are both absolutely necessary as is HijackThis:

      http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html

      I support quite a few home systems. Currently, the majority of my time is spent cleaning spyware and virus infestations. After installing Ad-Aware, HijackThis and Spybot, my clients stop having problems. As well, a working virus scanner is important. I've encountered several systems where the virus scanner has been deactivated. Therefore, I've been putting the EICAR test virus on all my systems.

      http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm

      Spyware used to be most bots from hackers, now it seems it's all marketing crap from big business. Isn't greed grand?

      --
      Words to men, as air to birds.
  2. UW report - read it carefully by The_Bagman · · Score: 5, Informative
    It actually says 5.1% of computers were infected with one of Gator, SaveNow, Cydoor, and eZula - just 4 out of the hundreds of spyware programs out there.

    It didn't answer how many of the computers were infected with any spyware program, just those four.

  3. IMO, more than 20% if well maintained systems... by einhverfr · · Score: 4, Informative

    I run the computer networks for a number of small businesses. We run a variety of programs to keep spyware off the systems. These are less effective than antivirus software.... Approximately 33% of my customers are found to have spyware on a regular basis.

    --

    LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  4. Re:Well 10%.... by GoRK · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well as for Mac's -- I don't know if it's part of the culture of the things or what, but there are TONS of mac appps out there that "phone home" to an extent that is generally not tolerated in PC software. A lot of apps even spew network traffic when they start/while they are running to enforce licensing between machines on the LAN. Rather than protest the vendors' applications, though, the community responds as it typically does -- with a ~$10 app named "Little Snitch" that catches this activity. I have never tested it either, but I kind of wonder whether or not "Little Snitch" phones home also...

  5. As a local (retail) PC Tech... by Arctech · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...I fully concur with that estimation, if not higher.

    At least 8 of the 10 computers that I fix follow this routine:

    Update and run AV program, if possible.
    Install Adaware, update, run.
    Install Spybot S&D, update, run.
    Run CWShredder.
    Fire up a HijackThis! log and manually remove the leftovers.

    I'm getting pretty damn good at filtering out the hijackthis logs, too.

    Seriously, if you familiarize yourself with spyware removal, you could make a killing on the home PC market. Manufacturers won't help you with spyware. It's getting to the point where the retail chains and PC shops won't deal with it either; they'll simply offer you a format/reinstall.

  6. At Time Warner we have HALF related to spyware by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Informative

    HALF of the internet connectivity related issues are spyware releated in that it corrupts the TCP/IP stack and Winsock settings in the registry. Also, we had major problems when people installed SP2 on an infected PC with spyware too.

    In fact it's so bad. I have the Microsoft KB article 817571 bookmarked and always open on my desktop for when I take calls.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
  7. Re:Okay by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 5, Informative

    The guys who determined it was only 5% only looked for 4 specific pieces of spyware. That means 100% of their computers could be infected with the other 8 billion pieces of spyware out there, but only 5% were gator, ezula, and another two that I can't remember right now, even though I just R'd the FA....

    --
    "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
  8. Re:Perhaps Dell should pre-install less spyware. by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can get a Dell with no OS, and with FreeDOS in the box. Or you can get a Dell Precision with RH pre-installed.

  9. Re:Well 10%.... by halowolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    I use my firewall as a snitch. Not only do plenty of apps phone home but so many of them that do still work perfectly well despite being blockaded from the internet. I do however get quite annoyed by applications that you configure to not use the internet that then still go ahead and try to access the internet.