I think I’ve gotten them. I’m hoping they’ve been slayed. Who really knows?
Tonight at work, one of my computers started acting a little nuts. The farther I peered inside, the more things I saw that were out of whack.
One-by-one looking at the list of running programs I found what seems to be a full suite of spyware/adware from begin2search.com. Hey guys, thanks for the programs. Not!
How did they get there? This is a machine that’s never used for web browsing.
As it turns out, when we had a dedicated high speed T-1 line installed, this machine was put out on the Internet to test it. Running Windows 2000, it was like telling burglars where to find unlocked doors.
Microsoft has got to take a bit of responsibility here too. What were they thinking. This is a security nightmare.
I know my way around the inner workings of these machines and it still took me hours. Technophobes don’t even have a chance. These bits of rogue programming are impervious to the uninitiated. They certainly wouldn’t go away with just one swipe of one spyware program.
Please, never again.
Current IT security testing reveals a “virgin” Windows 2000 system without having been updated with all service packs (SP4) and additional security patches is compromised within 30 minutes of being connected to the Internet (without software and/or hardware firewall protection). Your IT folks should have known better. However, I’ll note that it is not usually spyware/adware that gets installed in such situations; those are most often installed by users that insist upon using Internet Explorer to browse the web. Systems connected to the Internet are more often compromised by “worms” that attack via open “ports” on the Internet connection.
The most simple and effective defense against spyware/adware is to use Netscape Firefox. It’s free and it’s much more secure than IE. You can also download and install free adware search and destroy programs such as adaware. But the best defense is to avoid getting the problem in the first place.