Adware epidemic

[Sekani]

In the last two weeks I've cleaned up a dozen different PCs infected with "Antivirus XP 2008" and its associated crap. It's thankfully not that hard to get rid of, but seriously, I'm getting tired of running out to seemingly every single Win XP machine in existence cleaning this shit up.

[amtalx]

Tell people to do their surfing in a VM...keep that shit contained.

[The_Gio]

whats it do?

[Sekani]

whats it do?


Changes your desktop background to a warning message saying that you have a spyware infection.

Changes your screensaver to mimic a repeating blue screen of death.

Gives you frequent pop-ups warning of a serious virus infection, complete with fake scan results, and prompts you to purchase the program for various amounts of money to get rid of it.

Reminds me that spam e-mail is still the most effective way to spread malware because computer users are fucking idiots.

[MetaZedlen]

Hmm, my uncle downloaded this fucking thing on my mom's compy, and now, the damn hard drive won't even spin up when I turn it on...

So yea, it get much worse than expected if it isn't taken care of...

BTW, Sekani, is there any specific way to kill this thing, or can it be done by means of a conventional antivirus?

[amtalx]

Browsers really should come with an idiot mode that doesn't allow you do download ANYTHING. Although, if he was allowed to do that much damage, he probably had admin privileges.

[Sekani]

Spybot S&D (version 1.6) is the best consumer tool to get rid of it. Any major anti-virus program will detect and remove it if properly updated, but they miss a few important registry changes.


Browsers really should come with an idiot mode that doesn't allow you do download ANYTHING. Although, if he was allowed to do that much damage, he probably had admin privileges.
One of the things I like about Vista, it does come with this "idiot mode," blocking all file downloads from browsers and e-mail via Parental Controls. Just need a non-idiot to set it up.

[Leviathan]

I have that on my PC. I wish I knew how to get rid of it along with the other 746 viruses. =/

[Powder Keg]

Running spybot in safe mode is best.

Also, hijack this works really well, but you can only use that if you know what you're doing.

When I used to get a shitload of spyware I'd just search for files just created in the past day and find it also. You need to know what type of file to recognize and what's supposed to be there too. >_>

[Aisha379]

The best general use anti-virus I have found is RemoveIT Pro.

Scans really fast, I've had it find things other programs miss, update almost every day, and its just a tiny program that does nothing but scan for viruses - no annoying protection walls that slow your internet or anything.



I'm getting tired of running out to seemingly every single Win XP machine in existence cleaning this shit up.

Start charging $10 for it~

[KodiaX987]

You people also forgot this wonder program named GCS.





Good Common Sense.

[McLaughlin]

You people also forgot this wonder program named GCS.





Good Common Sense.

Sense is no longer common.

[Sekani]

You people also forgot this wonder program named GCS.





Good Common Sense.

See bullet point #4 above.


Start charging $10 for it~
I charge $150 :o

[Aisha379]

Seriously? You can get that much just from removing a bit of spyware for people?

Sign me up.

[Powder Keg]

I've had neighbors and neighbors of friends give me monies for doing simple stuff like this.

Our generation is rather lucky in that regard.

[McLaughlin]

Once in a while I turn the brightness on my brother's monitor to 0 and make him pay me ten bucks to fix it. It doesn't surprise me that people will pay that much to have someone come over and download a free program for them.

[Mewnie]

Once in a while I turn the brightness on my brother's monitor to 0 and make him pay me ten bucks to fix it.

rofl


Oh, Spybot and avast! here. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say :3

[CelestialBlade]

Once in a while I turn the brightness on my brother's monitor to 0 and make him pay me ten bucks to fix it. It doesn't surprise me that people will pay that much to have someone come over and download a free program for them.
On one of the last days of my engineering internship, we flipped the display on my supervisor's monitor 180 degrees, but edited his desktop such that it was right side up in that display mode. Oh that was fun XD

[KodiaX987]

rofl


Oh, Spybot and avast! here. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say :3

A buddy of mine caught a malware at work - and the first thing it did was disable both Avast and Norton.

The funny part: he was given a popup proposing to install a program from some website. He answered "No." The thing went ahead and installed itself anyway. Using Firefox, no less.

[Mewnie]

A buddy of mine caught a malware at work - and the first thing it did was disable both Avast and Norton.

The funny part: he was given a popup proposing to install a program from some website. He answered "No." The thing went ahead and installed itself anyway. Using Firefox, no less.

bah.

Reminds me of the time my ex brother-in-law was using one of my computers
and one day got a popup saying "DANGER YOU HAVE A VIRUS CLICK HERE TO REMOVE IT!"

Of course, he clicked there.

And I had a fun weekend of bringing that computer back from the dead. And banning that numbskull from using my computers.


He'd also visit countless porn sites and rack up the spyware. I'd screencap the Spybot log and make it the desktop image with the caption "NO MORE PORN!" hoping he'd get the hint.

*sigh*

[MaximusLight]

http://xkcd.com/350/

At least if nothing else you can keep them as pets right?

[KodiaX987]

Yeah, in our case, it was a classic Windows popup - not a browser one. It was the sort of dialog box you can't get out of unless you make some sort of choice (which usually boils down to "do you not want to refuse to not do the contrary of a non-installation, knowing that the answers are reversed on the buttons?")

[Shadowpawn]

A buddy of mine caught a malware at work - and the first thing it did was disable both Avast and Norton.

The funny part: he was given a popup proposing to install a program from some website. He answered "No." The thing went ahead and installed itself anyway. Using Firefox, no less.

Yet another reason to install NoScript on FireFox.

[Randomness]

Yeah, in our case, it was a classic Windows popup - not a browser one. It was the sort of dialog box you can't get out of unless you make some sort of choice (which usually boils down to "do you not want to refuse to not do the contrary of a non-installation, knowing that the answers are reversed on the buttons?")

Alt+F4? Ctrl+Alt+Del?

[Triple_S]

Alt+F4? Ctrl+Alt+Del?

Reboot the computer? Maybe in safe mode if the window pops up while not browsing the web?

[Rust]

On one of the last days of my engineering internship, we flipped the display on my supervisor's monitor 180 degrees, but edited his desktop such that it was right side up in that display mode. Oh that was fun XD

Once, a friend of mine lent us his laptop for the night because we needed it for a movie, and we used the good ol' "desktop screenshot set as wallpaper" trick, with a slight variation : we only removed the World of Warcraft shortcut icon from his desktop.
No need to say he went nuts and it took him forever to find out why WoW was the only thing that wasn't working when he was clicking on it.

I only got a bothering virus (SpyWare Quake) on my laptop once, during the first month after I bought it, and I don't even know how it got there. Anyways, I got rid of it with the help of safe mode 'cause this bastard had backup files, and backup files of the backup files and shit like that.

Since then, I deactivated the shitty Windawz firewall and antivirus program and I only work with SpyBot, AdAware and ewido, performing some clean ups in my cookies and such from times to times. Never got any problem so far.

[Sekani]

Once, a friend of mine lent us his laptop for the night because we needed it for a movie, and we used the good ol' "desktop screenshot set as wallpaper" trick, with a slight variation : we only removed the World of Warcraft shortcut icon from his desktop.
No need to say he went nuts and it took him forever to find out why WoW was the only thing that wasn't working when he was clicking on it.
That is awesome enough for me to actually try it. There's a programmer here who think he's hot shit, I wanna see how long it takes him to figure out the problem.