Wednesday, October 29

Adware and Winterizing

SpyBotSFC.jpg

I have not been feeling safe since we got that last attack of ad/spy ware on the computer. Seems like it really threw me for a loop of paranoia. I've been trying to make absolutely sure that the computer is clean for a couple of days now, mostly because of the Microsoft Security Center. I'm thinking my "problem" with it may not be a problem after all. It's not like we had a virus, it was adware and was cleaned using Spybot and the AVG anti-virus programs. That being said, I still wasn't satisfied so started a Windows OneCare scan, twice, and both times I accidentally closed the scanning when it said there were two Adware infections. After I spent a couple hours messing with that, I just went ahead and did a SpyBot scan, which found yet another Adware program called "SmitFraud.C." Here's the lowdown written by SpyBot:

Product: Smitfraud-C.:

Description
This program installs itself through the internet and creates new desktop wallpaper. This wallpaper looks like a Windows 98 blue screen and contains a warning that the computer is infected with viruses, that one should download run a virus scanner and that the computer wouldn't work in normal mode. In addition to this one gets a desktop icon leading to a pretended anti virus application named PSGuard. Scanning the computer with this software will return a virus found (that was installed by this software itself). In order to remove this virus one has to download the full version for about 20 EUR.

Another unpleasant effect of Smitfraud-C. is that some configuration options in the Control Panel will no longer be available. This way it stops the user from changing the wallpaper and forces him to keep the blue screen. Overall Smitfraud-C is a very sneaky software trying to sell PSGuard by frightening less experienced users.

That being said, I'm feeling like because the sun is shining and it's pretty warm that I should be outside doing some winter preparedness, IE bring more downed branches up the the wood shed from out back so that I can cut them up for the teens to split and stack. Mostly though I feel like I've been unnecessarily attached to this machine. Bye for now.

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