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Non-Technical Users Talk Malware
swirsky writes "The Chicago Sun Times is running an article detailing the experiences of non-technical users after they were infected by spyware, malware, and viruses. We cluck our collective tongue and think that we'd never be so stupid, but this is a major problem that plagues personal computing." From the article: "The study found that spyware has disrupted the computer lives of 43 percent of surfers. That means an estimated 59 million people have spyware or adware on their computers, the study found. Adware is defined as tracking programs that come bundled with other software and that users knowingly download, although they don't necessarily want the adware."
I love malware. Malware removal acounts for probably 65-70% of the bottom line in my business. I'll tell you something else...the $129 average price tag quoted in the article is right on the money.
Personally, I hope nothing is done about the problem. I only wish I could protect my less-technically-inclined family members and friends more effectively, as I don't charge them for removal.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I downloaded my first program with BitTorrent a few weeks ago -- a TV show that my VCR failed to record. While doing that, I accidentally clicked on a certain part of the web page. Bingo slammo, my system was infected with spyware, this nasty Aurora and nail.exe
Being a technical guy, familar with the registry, COM, and how windows works, I went about trying to kill this pesky snake. A few hours later, after saying some words I won't repeat here, I decided to wipe the machine and start over (it was a lighly loaded box, so no major loss)
I could have gotten SoftIce and gone into kernal mode to trap this bastard, but it was way beyond my effort vs. reward tolerence level. Spyware has gotten so complicated and sneaky nowadays: to me it is worse of a threat than virsuses ever were.
Now I run double anti-spyware programs in addition to my A/V and firewall. I think that we technical people are also misunderestimating the danger posed by this junk to our own machines.
Run With the Bulls, Swim With the Sharks
An thanks to Microsoft it looks like *every* Windows computer will be infected with spyware in the next veriosn of Windows.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
I run a firewall, I have my operating system completely patched, and I never open attachments from people I don't know.
Imagine my surprise when I ran AdAware just today and discovered 7 infections.
The real problem is not that there is a bunch of computer illiterate grannies opening every attachment they receive. While that is a factor, the real vulnerability is in the hubris of "power users" who think they can't get infected because they take all the precautions. But as I learned today, sometimes even that is not enough to be completely protected.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
One small but not insignificant piece of the problem is just that, the attitude among techies that if only the "lusers" would stop being so stupid, they wouldn't have so many problems.
I've predicted this before, I'll stand by the prediction, (unless there are quick, effective, and transparent solutions) people eventually will become so fed up with this they will collectively begin to unplug (not necessarily a bad thing) and move on. I have in the last few years established my uneasy peace with Microsoft Windows on my dual boot machines now that XP has reached reasonable stability, but have gotten to the point where I rarely go there anymore because it has ceased being a "boot into" endeavor and instead is almost always a boot, then reboot, and sometimes yet another update and reboot. So much for transparency. I have programs I like to use in Windows I've actually begun to offset by creating my own similar linux functionality (thank Goodness I can code) just because I can't stand the 15 minute preamble to getting up and running in Windows.
On the other hand, my Dad, whom I've spent countless hours coaxing and helping learn Windows and how to use his computer called the other day and said he had disconnected it, and didn't care to ever use it again. I can't blame him.
I have no spyware or malware on my computer. I only download good programs, like Bonzai Buddy and smilies for my Outlook Express. When I am not using my computer, and while I am using my computer too, I let my computer send out e-mail and perform security audits on other Microsoft Windows computers! In exchange, I get free, unlimited access to special money saving offers for products from many reputable companies, such as Pfizer.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
I can understand why non-technical users surf with Internet Explorer.
I can understand why technical users use Internet Explorer for Windows Update and a small selection of trusted websites (e.g. online banking) for compatibility.
But I have no sympathy whatsoever for technical users who should know better that continue to use Internet Explorer to visit websites that are in no way trustworthy.
That's 43% of the folks surveyed who know they've been bitten. I'd guess there are at least half again as many who don't know that their IE keeps taking them to that new "search screen" because of something they downloaded.
I personally run Debian Linux as desktop OS on my desktop machines, and the *BSDs on my firewall and server machines and entrust my source backup to the FreeBSD machine with NFS, but it is not hard to have a Windows machine that is spyware free. I have my grandparents, non computer savvy teachers, and many relatives who call me "computer whiz" (which is annoying) setup with Firefox and a software firewall (I'm not going to setup an OpenBSD machine to firewall unless they give me more than four litres of Mountain Dew) and they have no problems. They all run Windows {XP, ME, 2000, 98} without problems. With Firefox and gmail, they have never complained about the computer "being slow" or "crashing alot" now. This is a simple solution that ISPs like Adelphia should solicit to customers, instead of blooding blocking ports to "protect" less competent users, and annoy the rest of us like me. These teachers and relatives are soliciting Firefox, gmail, and a software firewall to all their contacts.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
"There is a trust gap,'' said Douglas Sabo, a member of the board of directors for the National Cyber Security Alliance, which did that study. Consumers believe they are safer than they actually are, he said.
Wow, what insight!!! You could apply this statement to how people relate to today's government, media and advertising.
The bottom line is that people need to be vigilant about security in whatever they are doing. The computer software manufacturers need to stop spyware and adware as a built-in feature, not as a free download from an obscure website. But then again, who is profiting from all this spyware and adware? Most likely it includes some of the same people who are trying to stop it.
It does provide a need for tech workers to fix these problems ---- as its only bright side.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Macs are not immune to viruses, we just haven't seen a virus or spyware author take the time to exploit it, yet. Why? Because it isn't profitable RIGHT NOW.
When you see the Mac userbase hit a decent number (and I don't pretend to know what that is) then you'll see spyware and viruses for it. Fact. Until then, stop being a mactard and just deal with the situation at hand: there is a lot of spyware out there and something needs to be done now. That something is not ignoring the problem until it swims up and bites you in the ass.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Gator, er, Claria, is not spyware.
Gator CPO at the Department of Homeland Security.
Legitimized by Microsoft and with representation on HomeSec DPIAC, Gator is now officially securityware, Citizen!
And if you've got some sort of problem with that, take it up with the boss, namely HomeSec's Chief Privacy Officer. She's none other than Nuala O'Connor-Kelly, formerly of Doubleclick.
What's with the head-on-desk-thumping motion? I'm not demented enough to make this shit up!
Why exactly is that allowed? At least make the bastards advertise it on par with the 'features'.
Because for legal purposes, they're implicitly required to make you agree to a license agreement, which in most cases does state that, by default, or sometimes as a requirement of the license, they'll be installing the adware on your system.
By contrast, there's no requirement for a company to offer a "feature set" on their website, or anywhere else. I suppose you're proposing something like a Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes, but that seems like overkill to me, and I do hate ad/malware.
But more importantly, this sort of thing is exactly how the legislative branch of the US government works: "Sure, you can have this bill, but we're going to tack on some of our own additions that you probably haven't had time to read." Adware in EULAs Riders on bills. While again, I do hate adware, I really suggest we rout this process from our respective lawmaking bodies before we concentrate on [wah, wah] consumer electronics.
--- What
Well of course it costs $129 to fix. That's the price of Tiger. Duh.
'Securityware' or 'Security? Where?' ;)
Seriously though, your post is interesting - I hadn't heard of the term 'securityware' being used before, especially not for malware. I guess that Microsoft will try to spin this into a good thing, if they can't keep it quiet.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
One one hand, spyware is some pretty evil stuff. There are little weasel programs I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get out of systems.
On the other hand, I get paid to do that. I just did one small company with 5 computers that was literally shut down because they couldn't do anything on their systems. Spyware is a problem on just about every single "joe average" computer that I have seen lately. The problem, of course, is going to get worse as long as Windows continues to allow users to run with privileged access by default.
I don't feel like going into a Microsoft rant - I'm sure it would be preaching to the choir anyway. I would like to share effective tools in my warchest for cleaning out spyware -
Ad-Aware - My favorite anti-spyware program right now. Gets about 95% of baddies.
HiJack This! - Cleans up anything that Ad-Aware may have left behind. It scans all startup regkeys, services, and BHO IE extension keys and lets you select which ones to nuke. BE CAREFUL, it lists both the good and the bad. If you don't know what a process is, google for it before you remove its key.
There are many other useful tools on this download page as well, like LSPFix. This program will fix the mess left by programs that mess with your TCP stack, such as New Net, whos manual removal can disable your Internet access completely.
Pocket KillBox - You know those processes that come back from the dead after you kill them? Can't delete the EXE because it's locked in both normal and safe modes? Pocket Killbox is what you need. If it can't delete the file outright, it can temporarily end the Explorer task and try it that way. If that doesn't work, it can use Windows' replace-on-reboot function to swap the EXE with a dummy file on the next reboot. Very handy for getting rid of the most nefarious of processes.
Spyware Blaster - Pre-emptive spyware prevention. The interesting thing about this program is that it doesn't remain resident in memory. Instead, it writes files and regkeys to your system that prevent the spyware from installing. Adding and removing protection can be done in one click.
-R
So your Mom went to the trouble of downloading and installing 1000 programs?
Wow, that's industrious, and she should be commended.
Ignore it, and get on with your life. The CORRECT answer is, as always, that computers just get old, and slow down. There are SPECIALIZED shops that can give them a tune-up, and you don't have the equipment.
Keep repeating that. You KNOW you can't win this battle.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The mac had a fair number of viruses back around 1992-1994 when OS7 came out. At that point many schools were buying color macs (II series, then centra, then quadra) since they were far superior (graphically and in some means, performance-wise) to the PCs at that point. This happened to coincide with the beginning of internet use and networking in many schools, and quite a few viruses got prolific amongst the macs, at least in my school system. The only half-decent AV product at the time was from Norton, but even it was awful since it was really slow and wrote about 10MB of files in directories which the mac GUI couldn't locate (which was a fairly nasty surprise given how small hard discs were then)... it was nasty. I remember moving to win95B boxes (we skipped 95 initially) and being impressed with having fewer viruses and nuisances than on the mac. Granted, things have changed a bit.
How can someone "report" (I use that word loosely) on this problem and tiptoe around the huge elephant in the room? In spite of the overall fraction of users that are having problems, spyware is not normal. It is almost entirely contained within one single very specific homogenous portion of the population. To say that computer users suffer from spyware is like saying that Sol 3 lifeforms suffer from tobacco mosaic virus. Yes, it's technically true if you want to get pedantic, but it's hard to believe that a "reporter" (*cough*) could so egregiously overly-generalize unless they intended to mislead.
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