How to Protect Yourself From Spyware

Ok,I’m going to step into geek mode for a little bit and while this isn’t directly bass or music related, it does relate to the box around this or attached to it via a cord (the computer for all the guitarists and singers reading). So if you do a lot of band stuff online it very well may be directly related. But here we go…

This week my step mom got a new computer, while she’s pretty computer savvy, lol when you have a geek like me around you take advantage of it, and she was worried about my brother getting it infected with virus and screwing it up, like she had heard me complain about many times that he did to my machines and didn’t want it to happen to hers. First I explained that what the problem wasn’t virus actually but spyware, which it some ways is worse but in some ways better than virus. The stereotypical VIRUS that kills your system dead in its tracks and most users are scared of, don’t really exist outside of childish chatroom or forum “wars”.

Why? For one all the major email providers that almost all of the internet users have, use state of the art virus scanners that simply won’t allow you download them, even if you want to. I myself forward all my domain based emails to hotmail and gmail accounts for that reason (yahoo and aol are all up to par as well). Secondly, spyware just makes
More sense for the programmer to develop[p as you will read in a bit. What would you rather spend time writing a program to do? 1. a program that may kill a few computers of the very stupid or 2. write a program that will turn every computer it touches into a cash generating machine, and can’t be stopped by any virus scanner until after its infected, and is completely legal because you the user has “agreed” to download and install the program. Easy choice huh? If you have ever downloaded something from the internet that you should have paid for, go to band sites that have pop ups, or have ever visited a porn site chances are you are infected with spyware.

While no spyware is good, there are 2 distinct classes, that I’ll call greyware and blackware (SEO terms), the greyware are from semi reputable companies, that are up front with their install process and what they are doing. They of course pretty it up a bit, spinning their aim to help deliver you what you are looking for when you are looking for it, such as a pop up ad for travel as you are on a travel site, that bypasses your pop up blocker, making you think that the site had a pop up ad. Often they will track your online surfing habits to sell to 3rd parties. These programs are usually piggybacked into peer to peer file sharing type programs, where you must install them to use say kazaa. Greyware also gives you easy uninstall wizards so you can rid your system of it thru its own un-install wizard or windows own. Of course the main software no longer works, so the only answer is get rhapsody or stop file sharing lol. Blackware is the nasty stuff, and can infect any computer at any time thru active x controls without you even knowing it or stopping it. Once infected uninstall isn’t easy, often editing the registry itself is required, which is a hairy process for even those that know how. The program also opens a door on your computer for all his buddies to come in and join the fun. Scary huh, and its all legal, due to the default settings in IE, that automatically installs any active X component, it appears that you gave permission for the program to be installed, and agreed to its terms and conditions. Another trick is to take the button that says “no” and thru code actually make it a “yes” button, the only thing that controls what the buttons say is some text you enter inside “ “, or the whole window its self could be a “yes” button if its an image linked right, the only safe way to close these windows is with alt-f4, or the IE x button, if you are sure it’s the actual one. Porn sites, game sites, free hosted sites etc etc, all have these, with the higher value being giving away the sneakier the tactics used.

How can you tell if you got blackware? Probably the easiest is that your hompage gets highjacked , and no matter what you do to change it it always defaults back to some link filled page usually topped by Mesothelioma, or some bogus search engine that looks kind of like google but just not right. Every time you click on a link on that page the programmer gets money, sometimes that same search engine will be your default search engine no matter how hard you try and change it. While scary these programs have a fatal flaw that probably is the easiest way to tell, your computer slows down to a crawl and then locks up as soon as you get online. The programmers getting greedy caused them to write in backdoor access to get in more programs by opening up a port on your computer. Not bad so I now have your default search engine and home page hijacked, and a couple of programs to kick up pop-ups while you browse, minor annoyances but still probably unknown to most users. Then someone got smart, why go thru all the hassles of actually infecting the computer, I’ll just use a port scanner to find computers that are already infected and add my programs there thru the same port opened by the first program. Im sure you can see where this is going, and ends with the crashed computer…

If you are infected here’s how to fix it:
1. unplug your internet connection from your computer.
2. run your spyware scan program and delete all instances the scan returns
3. reboot
4. run the scan again removing any instances found, and reboot
5.keep doing this until the scan shows no new programs after a reboot.

Of course chances are you don’t have a spyware scanner, and all the above did was remove what you had, it won’t stop new infestations from happening. You could clear all the programs off, then go to one site and have them all back again.

If you are infected here’s how to fix it (take 2):
First try and see if you can stay online long enough to download, one of the following free scanners, if you can’t your gonna have to find a friend to send you a copy or use a different computer, break out that old windows 95 with the 33k modem if needed, it may take an hour to download but its better than nothing.

If you have xp use the msn one below its by far the best
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

none xp users get lavasoft its probably the best one after msn
http://www.lavasoft.com/

once you get a clean computer, xp users can do this little trick to stop almost all the blackware from ever infesting your system.

1. (note you need to have an admin account to do this)go to start >> control panel >> user accounts >> create new account . now create a new admin account.
2. log out of your current account and log into the new admin account you created. (log out don’t just switch users). Now switch all the other accounts you want to go online to limited user accounts.
What you have done is made it impossible for the programs to self install or get installed by a missed click or unknowing user, since that user on the computer isn’t authorized to install programs, no permission is given so the install errors out. Pretty sneaky huh?
However this only works on XP, and 2000, other users need to disable active x completely thru IE if their version supports it, use windows help for more info. And you won’t be able to install any programs at all even if you want to under that account, you have to be logged in as the admin account to install. I used this technique first while doing some interning for a booking agency, I was at home checking out bands websites and whatnot to see who got booked and who didn’t , and I kept screwing up my computer, so I just made a limited account to browse band sites on. Another reason to pay for hosting if you are serious about your band, a good way to not get booked is infecting the booking agents computer. I can’t remember which hosts were the worse, but if you go to a band site and theres a pop-up and its not a yahoo site get out of it fast and never go back. While that’s a pretty broad stroke, and not every free host with popups is bad, but better safe than sorry. So if you like to go to sites like that, or those drunkperson picture sites, or game cheat sites or porn, you need to be careful and protect yourself.