Anti-spy software

[Ian]

What anti-spy type software do you use or recommend using?

I'm running NAV and ZoneAlarm at the moment, should I be concerned about keyloggers and other spyware?


Thanks


Ian

[HughF]

Main thing is to avoid running peer-to-peer file-sharing software e.g. Kazaa. There are two main anti-spyware programs, AdAware which is from http://www.lavasoft.de but SpyBot may be flavour of the month, not sure where that comes from. I use AdAware, the scan takes a LONG time on my 1998 vintage PC but it works fine. I don't scan often but I'm very careful indeed to avoid any software I can do without. (I also use non-MS, text-only email and newsreader programs plus McAfee AV and ZoneAlarm Pro firewall.)

Cheers,

Hugh

[phil]

I use PestPatrol (bought from Zone Labs), ZoneAlarm Pro and NAV.

Works fine for me even though I've been too lazy yet to migrate my email and news client settings to Mozilla.

[cleverdic]

I run both AdAware and Spybot maybe every couple of weeks as they both work in a slightly different way. You can get Spybot from this site;
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download

I find I don't need to run it any more frequently than a couple of weeks since most of the stuff it picks up is fairly harmless. I did have a problem a few weeks ago on the suprnova.org website when I was persuaded to download the recommended software for bittorrents. Bad mistake.
I got a lot of bad things happening including redirected home pages and mysterious popups. I ended up having to using system restore on XP to flush everything out and use Adaware and Spybot to check on my system for any remaining software.

Richard

[Steve]

My God. I ran this Richard and got 76 problems !!!! Thats a worry, thanks for the tip

[HughF]

Look on the bright side, your laptop may be quicker now!

Cheers,

Hugh

[phil]

For finding general web pests, Norton does quite well on the scan but doesn't intercept incoming stuff. I ran NAV 2004 over a friend's PC the other day and found over a hundred pieces of adware. He thought he had a virus problem as his PC kept freezing, but I didn't find any viruses at all. The PC ran perfectly well after it was cleaned up.

PestPatrol scans like the stuff Richard mentions, but it also provides active protection so that no pests can get in at any time. Just out of interest, do AdAware and Spybot provide active protection too? Since I bought PestPatrol with ZoneAlarm and I've never had a problem since I got it, I've never had cause to look at the competition.

[alans]

My favorite client firewall is Tiny Personal Firewall, I'm currently using three others on other machines, but Tiny is the best (for me) by far (but that may be because I can set up the same sort of low level rules as I do on a real firewall).

A well configured firewall should stop any spyware installing on your machine but I still run SpyBot every now and again to be positive.

[Ian]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations, I downloaded spybot and it only found 14 items.

It doesn’t provide active protection - you have to run it as a scan but it only takes a couple or three minutes.



Ian

[phil]

Only 2 or 3 minutes? Are you either running a Cray or alternatively do you have a really tiny disk?

A full PestPatrol scan of my hard drive (60GB, RAID 0 on two Deststar 180s so it's a bit quick) takes nearly 40 minutes. That's why active protection is so useful.

[Danny]

Is anyone else running SpyBot...
I started having problems after I installed it.

I manually deleted the file System2.exe that was found in the Windows\System32 directory.
It's back again today and Symantec AV identifies it as W32.Spybot.Worm. I am not totally convinced that it''s from the Spybot software but could I ask anyone else who installed it to check if this file exists on their systems. I think it is more likely some other spyware (Symantec says Kazaa but I've never used any p2p software).

Symptoms I found:
Cant run regedit.exe, it closes immediatly.
Cant run task manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE) it closes immediatly.
C:\Windows\System32\system2.exe file exists.

[alans]

It's not spybot, wou've got worms Dan
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/av ... .worm.html
System restore is what's causing it to come back after you delete it, follow the removal instructions in that link.

[Danny]

I'm sure it is a worm from somewhere, but since system restore is disabled, I dont know how it's getting back in....
The other thing is that I dont know how it in - in the first place, I am pretty picky about what I install.

I have already done what the page suggested twice... If it comes back again, I'll reach for the ghost image.

-D

[Ian]

do you have a really tiny disk?

I think it's the same size as all the others - about the size of a Tudor brick with loads of wires coming out the back

[Ian]

Is anyone else running SpyBot...
I started having problems after I installed it.

I manually deleted the file System2.exe that was found in the Windows\System32 directory.
It's back again today and Symantec AV identifies it as W32.Spybot.Worm. I am not totally convinced that it''s from the Spybot software but could I ask anyone else who installed it to check if this file exists on their systems. I think it is more likely some other spyware (Symantec says Kazaa but I've never used any p2p software).

Symptoms I found:
Cant run regedit.exe, it closes immediatly.
Cant run task manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE) it closes immediatly.
C:\Windows\System32\system2.exe file exists.

Danny, I downloaded Spybot the other day following recommendations from here but don't have the system2 file that you mention.


Ian