Free, Near-Foolproof Way to Evade Windows Spyware

adam wenner writes "I have typed up instructions for 'non-computer people' on how to remove spyware and malware (and viruses for that matter). I have tested this procedure on about 40 computers and have never had any problems with any of it. Most people would say a nice 'format c:' would solve the problem, but for most people, that isn't good, and it's a headache reinstalling and migrating stuff over to a freshly formatted machine." I could have used this a few months ago while trying to mitigate malware damage to a friend's system.

Comments

Not good enough, I'm afraid

[PurpleFloyd]

These instructions provide a good start, but they simply don't cut it against the newer strains of spyware. I am known as a "computer guy" among friends and family, and thus get called upon to solve spyware problems fairly regularly; the ingenuity of the spyware pushers continues to astound me. Here's a partial list of things I had to remove by hand on my last 4-hour session on one computer, after running Spybot S&D and Adaware:

• An Active Desktop background which displayed an ad for spyware removal. This was a pain since it was locked into place using the Group Policy security system, the tools for which aren't available on an XP Home system.
• A couple of processes which managed to get themselves into Safe Mode. I had to use a Bart-PE Windows LiveCD to kill them
• About 20 Browser Helper Objects, including one which inserted its own referrer links into Google results and 3 toolbars, and 50 startup processes that neither Spybot nor Adaware found

While automated tools are useful, and will likely become more useful as the market matures, they are certainly not a panacea. These days, the only way to eliminate spyware is to not get it in the first place; that's where we, as computer professionals, should be focusing our efforts.

Re:An alternative way...

[moosesocks]

Nice, but not exactly practical or well-supported.

There's a product called DeepFreeze commonly used in academic computer labs that effectively has the same effect. Any changes written to disk are lost at the next reboot. You don't have the RAM limitations of a LiveCD, and you're immune to any virus or spyware under the sun.

As far as I know, it's a very secure piece of software. The company used to have a challange that they'd pay $500 anyone who could disable the software without the password or booting off of a floppy and reformatting the hard drive.

As you can imagine, it's a godsend for K-8 computer labs. Students can experiment and install whatever the heck they want, and if they screw something up, just shut down and reboot.