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by Dave B. , June 17, 2004
On my first entry to your site a window warning appeared quote "Our scanning software detects that this computer is infected with a spyware called Internet Optimizer/Wscm.......which displays unwanted advertising and records your communications. "Now if that was not your window warning then who's was it? My canceling of the first warning produced a second "security scan report" A browser called MoneyTree has infected this machine......you may have noticed unwanted advertising and sluggish system performance....etc. Which I had, hence my response. What's going on people?
Dave B.
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What's going on is: you've got spyware.
You may have visited a website that launched a "pop-under" ad, or that launched "pop-up" ads when you left that site. You may have (intentionally or inadvertantly) installed free programs that trigger pop-up ads at random intervals, or whenever you type certain keywords.
One way or another, two things are certain:
1: Nasty people have written nefarious software that's up and running on your computer. And ...
2: We're not the nasty people who gave you this nefarious software.
We don't do pop-ups, pop-unders, or any shenanigans remotely like that. We never have, we never will, and we'd like to see such shenanigators tarred and feathered and drawn and quartered.
We're not experts, so we can't give much advice on what you should do about your problem, beyond the obvious: It would be counterproductive to buy any "solution" that advertises itself via pop-up spyware ads. The people responsible for your pop-ups are obviously among the bad guys, and anything you download from them will just make your problem worse.
Of course, you're using a good firewall, and of course you have anti-virus software and anti-spyware software that's regularly updated, yes?
Here's a relevant newsgroup, peopled with many good souls who know much more than we do. Here's a pertinent post.
And anyone else who has good advice is welcome to chime in.
=H&HH=
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As a broadband tech support agent, I thought I'd pass along some comments and better/easier links you might want to append or refer people to instead/as well.
Currently, as internet security goes, anti-virus and a firewall are no longer enough. You definitely need anti-spyware software too.
Luckily, there's lots of it out there, some of it is even trustworthy, and some of THAT is even FREE. The overview pages I would recommend are microsoft.com/spyware/ and doxdesk.com/parasite/. These both outline the problem and provide a variety of (HONEST) solutions.
Another useful page is microsoft.com/protect/ which verifies that the various Windows security settings are what they're supposed to be (sometimes spyware turns them off). And finally, it is *extremely* important that people keep up to date on the various "Critical Updates" available from the Windows Update section at microsoft.com/. The other ones don't matter so much, but the critical ones are usually called critical for a reason. (If everyone had actually been up-to-date, every major (news-making) virus/worm outbreak over the past year or so wouldn't have been able to happen.
Oh, and a side-note, Macintosh users tend to miss out on all this fun entirely, since everything is usually targeted at Windows.)
Anyway, once you've chosen an anti-spyware program or two (sometimes one catches what the other missed) and installed them, the first thing is to UPDATE them, so they know what they're looking for. Anti-spyware, like anti-virus, needs to be updated at least once a month. Maybe pick a day and regularly check for updates to everything (AV, AS, Windows Updates, etc) on that same day. Finally, scan the computer and let the programs fix whatever they find. This usually gets things back under control.
IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Sometimes installing anti-spyware is too little too late, and the damage is already too extensive. Or sometimes, because of the way it's designed, removing spyware will cause something else to stop working that had been working ok as long as you were drowning in pop-ups. At this point, your best bet is to call the local computer store and see about getting someone to come fix the PC, or if the machine is a brand-name and relatively new (under a year), call the manufacturer for free warranty support. Please DON'T call the Internet company for help, as there's really nothing they can do about your personal PC problems, and a customer calling in and then being told to call a shop often just results in unhappiness all around.
Just thought this might save a few people from an otherwise rapidly-growing nightmare.
Johann M.
Helen, just a note to ad to the spyware discussion. Aviod one called Spynuker. It has a trojan that infects your computer when you download it.
Tess |
There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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