The insistence of parasites
We just got a customer computer in for a once over.
That poor thing had caked dust in every orifice, though the insides were relatively clean - what got in got stuck in the processor fan…
And it’s filled with popups. Several different parasites are producing popups insisting the user download and install programs to clean the computer. The start page in Internet Explorer is hijacked by a site insisting that the computer has a trojan.
Which it has, of course.
We found a few dialers, along with other assorted parasites. And some viruses, though the scans aren’t complete yet.
I had no idea it was this bad out there!
How on earth are clueless newbies able to even USE their computers, much less keep them clean?
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:13 am
Tell me about it.
I now-a-days look at people’s computers and tell them that the PC is infected. They give me a weird look with the usual “I got an antivirus”.
Then I explain about spyware and set them off in the right direction.
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:33 pm
I worked on one that sounds very similar, except it was covered in dust on the inside and outside. A thick layer of orange dust coated everything. Never having seen orange dust, I was a bit confused. I knew they had pets, but this didn’t look like pet hair. Turns out the owner smokes cigars indoors. Cleaning that was easy, getting the spyware out was more difficult.
I don’t know how people can continue using computers like this, but I can certainly see how they can get infected. Even though I have my dad using Firefox, he keeps somehow downloading bad EXEs. Luckily he has McAffee that warns him when it detects them. Just this weekend he somehow downloaded PurityScan twice. He recently discovered Firefox’s Clear Private Data on exit on his own so I can guess how he stumbles across this kind of stuff.
There have been lots of worry that Windows Vista will put anti spyware programs out of business, I really don’t think they have much to worry about. Some will probably die off, but no matter how secure Windows gets, there will always be some spyware that sneak through and needs better anti spyware to remove it. Anyway, how can you complain when Microsoft is only doing what they should have done in the first place.
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I regularly get calls from friends and family telling me their “computers are full” and they need more memory. Inevitably, when I go over to look at their systems (the usual fee is a bottle of wine) they are almost always bogged down with search-bars in IE, spyware, malware, _occasionally_ viruses or trojans, dialers, etc.
I spend an hour or two just cleaning tons of crap off of their hard-drives, then switch them to Firefox. It sometimes helps, sometimes not.
Some of these nasties cannot be removed automatically, and require boots into Safe Mode (Windows) and manually deleting files or registry entries.
You’re right: What would they do without me or people like me? Buy new computers every six months because “they are full”?
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:42 pm
If you think about it, Microsoft is cheating themselves out of sales by securing Windows. If people had to buy new computers every six months or year due to overwhelming malware, that is a lot more computer sales with a brand new copy of Windows installed.
May 24th, 2006 at 11:34 am
if you believe microsoft is securing windows, I have some land I’d like to show you.
I give it two weeks before the first vulnerability shows up, and two months for the first critical.
May 24th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
They appear to be making things a lot better, but I agree it is going to be far from secure.