Spies
are now a bigger menace than viruses. I am increasingly called out to fix
internet or email programs which refuse to connect because they have been
crippled by spies. A computer slowing down, or failing to shut down, are
also symptoms of spy infestation. Spies often disable anti-spy and
anti-virus programs.
Some spies are scam diallers
that automatically make premium rate calls at £1.50 or £4.50 per minute
which results in a horrendous phone bill. If you are with BT, ask BT to
block your access to premium rate numbers. Diallers only work on dialup
accounts, broadband is safe from these pests.
Some spies introduce Trojans
into your computer, others record your keystrokes and send the information
to the creators of the Spy program.
The Windows Defender, McAfee, and Norton anti-spy programs are in my
opinion not fully effective, but they are improving as time goes by. However
Windows Defender is good at dealing with changes to the Hosts file.
One of the most frequent causes of spy infestation
is due to children downloading illegal free music. If your child has
accessed Kazaa, Limewire, Blubster, Grokster, Gnutellea, or any similar
illegal file sharing site you will be in deep trouble from spies. You will
also probably be pestered by pornographic sites.
If you see offers
for free
Search Bars, free Browser Helpers,
or
free anything
and you did not ask for them, kill them, if you accept the offer you will be
plagued with spies.
Spies can also hijack computers.
Hijackers take over your Internet browser (such as Internet Explorer) and
re-direct you away from your home page. They present you with either a blank
page or an unwanted page. Click
Here
to learn how to deal with this.
Update each anti-spy program once a month:
Update SpyBot:
When you are connected to the internet, minimize Internet Explorer by
clicking the the minus sign at the top right of its window. Open SpyBot then
click
Search for Updates. Ignore all the pretty flags (the mirror sites)
in the next window and click
Continue.
You will see ticked boxes and grey spanners. Ignore the fact that two or
three items are not ticked. Click the green down-arrow labelled
Download. If everything downloads successfully, click the
Exit
symbol which is a green plug and an orange socket. Then close down SpyBot.
Should any of the downloads fail you will see a red disk with a white cross
and the words
Bad Checksum. In this case Click
Back
to return to the Mirror list. Select any other mirror site and click the
green down-arrow labelled Download.
Immunising:
If one of the updates refers to immunization, you will be asked to
‘immunize’ after the download. In this case, after the download, click the
blue and white shield labelled
Immunize. Then click the button (at the upper part of the window)
that has a green plus sign and the word Immunize. When the immunisation has
completed, close down SpyBot.
To Update Ad-Aware:
Connect to the internet. Open Ad-Aware, then click the
Update
button. Click
Yes
when it asks you if you want the latest definitions. Also click Yes if it
asks you if you would like the latest update for the program. Sadly Ad-Aware
does not show a progress bar, so be patient and wait until it tells you that
the update is installed. Then close down Ad-Aware.
If you are on broadband,
download the two of these free anti-spy programs;
(i) Spybot Search & Destroy version 1.6 from
http://security.kolla.de
(ii) Ad-Aware AE from www.lavasoft.de
(iii) SuperAntiSpyware. This free program seems to be very effective at
detecting scareware as well as spies and Trojans. Download from:-
http://www.superantispyware.com
If you are on dial-up:
The magazine PC Advisor usually has a cover DVD that includes Ad-Aware and
Spybot, this will save you having to spend hours downloading them
For an excellent paid-for anti-spy
program use PC Tools Spyware Doctor. Its annual subscription is only about
£15 ($30). Make sure it is
PC Tools Spyware Doctor
, there are similarly named rogue programs out there.
If your current version of Ad-Aware
downloads no more that 5%, the program has become obsolete. You will need to
download
Ad-Aware free AE
.
Save the down loaded spy programs
to your Downloads folder then double click each one to install them.
During the installation of SpyBot, it will uninstall an older
version automatically. Click Next when you see requests to back up the
registry, register the product, update and immunise. You will have to go
on-line and update SpyBot before you can use it.
See below to learn how to Update SpyBot.
During the installation of Ad-Aware, select
Standard Installation. Ad-Aware it will offer to uninstall an older
version, if so, choose
Automatic
and click
Finish.
When asked to enter licence information, click the
Free
button. Download any newer bits for the program. If you see a panel with
boxes and red letters, click
Yes
to download the extras. A new Ad-Aware icon will be placed on the desktop, a
blue/green globe with a yellow letter
'A'
wrapped around it.
Scan once a week with SpyBot and Ad-Aware:
DO NOT GO ON LINE TO SCAN
.
Scan with SpyBot 1.6.2:
. Open SpyBot from the icon on the Desktop. Click
Check for problems. SpyBot will scan your computer. At the bottom
of the window you will see the names of the Spyware it is looking for (not
what it has found). Eventually it will say
Congratulations
if your computer is free of Spyware. Or, if it has found some spies, click
Fix the Problems
Scan with Ad-Aware 2008:
Open
Ad-Aware and click the
Scan
button on the lower right of the window. With
Smart scan
selected, click the Scan button at bottom right. A progress screen appears.
When the scan is complete the Stop scan button label will change to
Finish. Don't click the Finish button yet. You will now see three
tabs higher up in the window. At the bottom, you will see a summary of what
was found. You only need to remove the
Critical items. The others are usually harmless. I ignore the
non-critical MRU items under the Privacy Objects tab. If you remove these
MRUs, this clears out the addresses from the drop down list in the Address
bar of Internet Explorer. I like to keep this.
Under the
Critical Objects
tab, if nothing is shown below the headings 'Family' 'Category' 'TAI' then
click the
Finish button
.
Unhandled objects:
You will see a pop-up saying something about unhandled objects. Click
No
.
If under critical objects some spies are present
under the headings 'Family' 'Category' 'TAI ' then tick their boxes and
click the
Remove
button. Then click the Finish button and say
No
to the ‘unhandled’ objects pop-up. Close Ad-Aware.
