Free Fixer will also scan various critical components of a Windows operating system including running processes, autostart entries, Browser Helper Objects or TCP/IP settings. The difference becomes obvious after the report is being displayed on the screen. Free Fixer will for example whitelist critical system files which means that they will not show up in the default report. This is done to decrease the number of entries that are displayed making it easier for the user to concentrate and analyze the remaining items. There is however no way of displaying whitelisted items in the application, something that the developer’s might want to consider integrating in their security software program.

Another important difference is the “more info” link that is displayed next to each item that was found during the scan. A click on the link will open a page (in Internet Explorer) on the developer’s website that is listing information about the specific entry. Files from trusted companies like Apple or Mozilla are highlighted in green giving the user another indication of potentially safe applications and processes.

The program displays delete or repair checkboxes next to each entry that has not been whitelisted or indicated as being trustworthy. Additional information like the system path are displayed for each item which, combined with the link to display more information on a website, can be a great asset of identifying potentially dangerous items quickly.

Free Fixer is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system (including Windows Xp, Windows Vista and Windows 7). A download is provided at the developer’s website.

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The spyware add-on itself is distributed through forums and websites but not the main Firefox add-on repository. Users are once again reminded to only install add-ons from trustworthy sources.

The spyware add-on injects ads into Google search results pages. More disturbing than that is the fact that the Google search history gets transferred to a third party website that is (most likely) run by the developers of the spyware add-on. This means that every Google search query is transferred to the third party server.

Trendmicro suspects a change in criminal behavior. The web browser that was targeted the most in past years was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The user increases of Firefox makes it the second most popular web browser after Internet Explorer and some spyware developers might have decided that the critical mass is large enough to develop spyware for that web browser as well. Via Trendmicro, thanks Jojo for the news.

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And then there are programs like Inoculate that use the hosts file of the operating system to block spyware websites from being opened by routing the address of the spyware website to the local computer system (which means the website will not be displayed when the user tries to open it).

Inoculate is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that will add more than 14000 spyware websites to the Windows host file. These 14000 spyware websites are blocked from being accessed by users of the computer system. The software creates a backup of the current host file before it begins to add the spyware websites to it so that spyware attacks and spyware programs are automatically blocked.

It is possible to reset the Windows hosts file or restore a previously created backup. One slight disadvantage of this spyware blocking approach is that it is not possible to view the spyware websites before they are added to the hosts file. Another problem is that the program is not automatically updating the spyware list over the Internet which alternatives like Hostsman which offers four different block lists and auto updating. Hostsman on the other hand is not a portable software program.

It would be nice if the developer of Inoculate would add an auto update option and the ability to load different hosts file lists into the application.

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This article will concentrate on two lesser known free spyware removal tools. The first program is called Roguefix. It has been designed to counter so called rogue applications. The tool has been specifically designed to remove rogue scanners, desktop and homepage hijackers, trojans, codecs and miscellaneous malware.

Roguefix comes as a simple batch file that has to be executed in Windows safe mode.

The tool will then scan the operating system for spyware and remove detected spyware automatically from the computer system. The free spyware cleaner is only compatible to the Windows XP operating system according to the software developer.

SmitfraudFix on the other hand can scan a Windows XP or Windows 2000 operating system directly. The user needs to boot into safe mode for the removal process though. The program will generate a report after the scan which will list all the malicious files found after the spyware scan.

Both tools have been designed to detect and remove rogue applications only which does limit their usefulness in day to day spyware scans. It is however a good idea to have them at hand in case the computer system gets infected by rogue spyware.

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Windows Defender comes with the usual options to automatically update the program and schedule regular system scans to protect the computer system. Default actions for low, medium and high alerts can be defined that will be executed by the anti-spyware program automatically.

Microsoft’s anti-spyware solution comes with the interesting advanced tool Software Explorer which can display extensive information about startup programs, currently running programs, network connected programs and Winsock service providers.

Each program and provider is sorted by company which makes it easier to find non-Microsoft programs that are running or connected to the computer system.

Microsoft has improved Windows Defender over the years. The company did receive lots of criticism in the beginning which can be attributed to a low spyware detection rate. Several anti-spyware products have performed better in tests, outlined here or here. Please note that the tests linked in this article have been performed about 10 months ago and that the situation may have changed in the mean time.

Which leads to the question: Are you running anti-spyware software? If so which?

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The important part of the agreement is outlined below.

… The information which is monitored and collected includes internet usage information, basic demographic information, certain hardware, software, computer configuration and application usage information about the computer on which you install RelevantKnowledge. We may use the information that we monitor, such as name and address, to better understand your household demographics; for example, we may combine the information that you provide us with additional information from consumer data brokers and other data sources in accordance with our privacy policy. We make commercially viable efforts to automatically filter confidential personally identifiable information and to purge our databases of such information about our panelists when inadvertently collected…

The user has the option to go back, accept or decline the agreement. Back simply goes back one screen, accept will install Relevant Knowledge on the computer system while decline will not install Relevant Knowledge and exit the software installation.

Looking at the agreement it is obvious that Relevant Knowledge is collecting and monitoring information about the user, the computer system and usage. It is also clear that the collected information are combined with information from various other sources to create an extensive profile. Relevant Knowledge may also display surveys from time to time on the computer system. It is therefor clear that most anti-spyware applications and other programs that protect a computer system against malicious software consider Relevant Knowledge to be spyware.

Relevant Knowledge can be uninstalled from the Windows Control Panel. It has its own entry there. Uninstallation will not affect the software program it was installed with. Some developers, like those that develop SUMO, provide access to a lite version of their application which will install the program without the Relevant Knowledge addition.

Users who usually click-through installations should begin to pay better attentions to the dialogs presented to them to avoid installing programs like Relevant Knowledge on their computer system.

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Hitman Pro is making use of eight spyware scanning engines. It’s a mixture of free and trial versions. Among the software programs are popular spyware cleaners like Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-aware and Webroot Spysweeper. Each application can be selected to be included in the system scan or excluded from it. Besides those eight engines can include the commercial antivirus applications TrendMicro Sysclean and McAfee Virusscan if the user has a license for those applications.

The options contain several additional interesting features that require some explanation. The user can select to use the Browser security plugins that is offered by some of the anti-spyware applications, install security updates and configure least user access levels for his web browser.

The first run takes a bit longer than the future ones because all selected applications will be downloaded from the Internet. Hitman Pro is installing the automatically on the user system with minimal to no user input required. Once the applications have been downloaded the system scan begins. Each application is run after the other and the results are visible in the application itself and in Hitman Pro at the end.

This process can slow down the computer quite a bit and it is probably a good idea to let the scans run automatically and do something different in the meantime. One aspect that is not optimal is the fact that most of these anti-spyware tools run a permanent process even if the main application is not running.

This can create quite some noise in the background and experienced users might prefer to install and uninstall the applications manually instead. The idea itself is great however and it would have been really nice if Hitman would be able to use the scanning engines and definitions without having to install the software programs itself. That’s probably wishful thinking though.

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To give an example. Should a user run Ad-Aware, Spybot Search And Destroy, Spyware Terminator or one of the other dozen or so anti-spyware applications that can be used freely for personal non-commercial use.

To much choice can be confusing and this article tries to narrow down the list to security applications that are recommended most of the time. Some users will disagree with the choices and they have every right to do so. You can rest assured on the other hand that the selection of tools should be sufficient to scan a computer system thoroughly

Anti-Spyware:

Spyware usually refers to malicious software that tries to spy on the user or serve advertisement to him. This can be done with tracking cookies, changing the user’s homepage or showing popups from time to time.

• Spybot Search And Destroy – Spybot Search and Destroy is updated regularly and does not confuse the user with different versions like Ad-Aware does with Ad-Aware Free, Plus and Pro.
• Spyware Terminator – A tool that has been downloaded more than 17 million times should do a good job. Spyware Terminator is fast and efficient.

Anti-Virus:

Anti-virus applications create probably the most controversy. There is so much choice of free and commercial applications that makes it nearly impossible to make a decision. The applications protect the computer in realtime and can scan the computer thoroughly.

• AVG Anti-Virus – A classic anti-virus software that provides protection against viruses, rootkits and spyware.
• Free AV – Antivir protects the computer against viruses, rootkits, dialers and phising.

Rootkits:

Rootkits have been gaining popularity in the last years and one could say that Sony did not have a small part in raising the public’s perception of rootkits with their music CDs that contained a rootkit in order to prevent customers from copying the music.

• Rootkit Unhooker – a portable rootkit scanner with a size of under 100 Kilobyte.
• Gmer – is another tool to scan the computer for rootkits.

Is the list missing any categories? Would you put other applications up there (I know you would so let me know)?

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Here are the two links to the Spyware Doctor 5.5 with Antivirus Starter Edition [link] and Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition [link]. Version 5.0 of Spyware Doctor received the PC World’s Best Buy award in the October 2007 and several Editors’ Choice awards from PC Magazine, the last in 2008 for Spyware Doctor 5.5.

The main purpose of Spyware Doctor is to scan the system for spyware and remove it securely. It does this by offering three types of scans, two pre-defined and one custom. It also features the so called Onguard Protection which is a real-time protection which is limited in this Started Edition. Only two of the seven Onguard Protections are available in the Starter Edition. The two that are enabled are the File Guard and Immunizer Guard.

The File Guard protects the user from opening unsafe email attachments and launching malicious applications while the Immunizer Guard protects the computer from latest Active-X threats.

I cannot really say how effective the anti-virus module is and would not recommend installing it anyway, especially if you already use another antivirus software. The only limitation that was able to spot are those five Onguard Protections that are disabled in this version. They protect Processes, Startup Items, Network Settings, Cookies and Browser Settings.

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The problem with the Say no to drugs virus is that most virus scanner still do not detect it. Extensive information about this virus is available on the Precise Security website. If you suspect that your computer is infected with this virus you need to download the (free) Ewido Micro Scanner and perform a scan of your system. Remove the entries found and remove the entries of the virus as an autostart entry (autoruns comes in handy) and kill the tasks associated with the virus as well.

I was not able to find out if other products like Spyware Terminator or the various anti-virus applications like Antivir would be able to find and remove the Say no to Drugs virus. I was not infected with it but I guess they should be able to if you consider the fact that the removal procedure at the Precise Security website was posted in January.

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Malewarebytes Anti-Malware is a software currently in Beta that has an easy to use interface. Users can either quick scan their computer which scans only the hard drive of the operating system and Registry or fully scan their system with the choice of selecting the hard drives that should be scanned.

The quick scan finished on my main Windows XP partition in under 3 minutes while the full scan of all of my hard drives took completed in roughly 30 minutes. Neither scan did find any malware on my computer and I personally find it hard to judge the effectiveness of Anti-Malware.

The main disadvantage of Anti-Malware is in my opinion the non-existent realtime protection which is only available in the Pro version. This is a major drawback and makes the product inferior to other free anti-spyware applications.

It still seems to be pretty useful if you want to scan a system quickly considering that it uses less resources during the scan. CPU in the task manager for instance never went up above 20% while Spybot for instance was always using 65%+.

The beta version of Malewarebytes Anti-Malware is only available in the forums of the homepage with new versions being released every 2-3 days.

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He experienced slow downs even when no downloads were in the queue which are indicators that something is not right. Ghacks to the rescue. I decided to investigate orbitnet.exe and see what I can find. I remembered a setting in the options of Orbit Downloader that could have something to do with this behavior.

I opened Tools > Preferences and scanned all options for a sign of Orbitnet. I found it in the Accelerate menu. Enable Orbitnet to accelerate downloads is checked by default, as is Use mirror connections to accelerate download speed and Try to download from P2P and mirror sources when the target url does not exist.

Orbit Downloader uses Orbitnet to accelerate download speed which is based on p2p and auto mirroring search technology. If Orbitnet is disabled, you will get (the) file from source only and can’t get accelerated download speed via Orbitnet.

I disabled this options when I configured Orbit Downloader because I do not use mirrors and did not want to use P2P to download the files that I send to the download manager. The easiest way to get rid of this task is to uncheck Enable Orbitnet to accelerate download speed.

Close and Restart Orbit Downloader afterwards and you will see that the orbitnet.exe process is not listed in the task manager anymore.

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I was not able to find a engine that I knew of that was not listed, all the major players like Symantec, AVG, Kapersky and Avira are listed which means that the file will get a very special treatment. Even though the file gets scanned by those 32 engines it is no guarantee that it does not contain a virus. No script or software can give you that guarantee but this looks like the best way to scan a file for malicious code and the possibility of success is greater with it.

There does not seem to be a file size limit, at least nothing is mentioned on their pages regarding a file size limit. I suspect that big files will result in an error message after a certain time.

Files can be uploaded using SSL for increased security and it can be checked that the file will not be distributed to the antivirus companies if a virus is found. This is an important option that should be checked most of the time because of privacy issues.

Virus Total offers another way to check files for malicious code. You can send them an email to scan@virustotal.com with SCAN (or SCAN- if you do not want to distribute the sample) and no body text. Attach the file to the email and make sure that it does not exceed 10 Megabytes.

A report will be send after the scan to the email that send the file. Users can also download a shell extension to send files directly from the context menu to Virus Total. Found the link at Make Use Of.

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The sentenced that always reminds me of how amateurish Sony handled the whole affair went something in the line of “People who don’t know what rootkits do should not care about them”.

It seems Sony did it again. F-Secure is reporting that Sony is now selling a USB stick – the Sony MicroVault – which installs a hidden folder in c:\windows when installing the USB fingerprint software.

So, when enumerating files and subdirectories in the Windows directory, the directory and files inside it are not visible through Windows API. If you know the name of the directory, it is e.g. possible to enter the hidden directory using Command Prompt and it is possible to create new hidden files. There are also ways to run files from this directory. Files in this directory are also hidden from some antivirus scanners (as with the Sony BMG DRM case) — depending on the techniques employed by the antivirus software. It is therefore technically possible for malware to use the hidden directory as a hiding place.

F-Secure suspects that the hidden folder is used to protect the fingerprint authentication and strongly disagrees that this is the correct way to achieve a protection.

I think that Sony made a big mistake in using such a technology again even if it was intended to be of good use for the owner.

Read More:

F-Secure Blog

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Spyware Terminator assists you in setting up the software after installation by providing a setup assistant. You setup automatic updates, the protection level which offers a choice between beginner, advanced, expert and no protection, the integration of the free antivirus software ClamAV and finally whether you would like to send spyware information to a central server. Last but not least you can schedule scans and perform a fast system scan.

The fast scan found several critical objects which are automatically rated as Threats, Safe SW and Unknown SW. The threats are obviously the most critical objects that you should deal with before you take a look at the two other categories. Most threats get an automatic ranking from one to five with five being the most critical threat of course.

You may select some or all threats and either move them to quarantine or delete / uninstall them right away. The spyware removal itself is recommending to use the uninstallation routine (if existent) for the spyware that you want to remove. It should be obvious that many spywares do not offer uninstallation routines and it was not a problem for Spyware Terminator to remove all of the threats in that category.

It could be tricky to receive additional information about the objects listed in Spyware Terminator. There is no obvious way to find out more about “Nwiz” from within the program which means that you have to perform a search on the Internet to be sure why this is considered safe for instance. There is however a way to contact the support team which apparently helps if you have troubles identifying a certain object.

Another way would be to use the forum at the official website which has a own subforum that deals with questions and problems that occur when removing Threats.

The fast scan did not scan all files on my system and I decided to take a look at the available scan options to perform a full scan of my system. Next to the fast scan you can perform a full scan and a custom scan, both offering several options to optimize the scan. The Full Spyware Scan gives you the option to perform a system scan, a registry scan, a files scan or a deep files scan while the custom scan lets you choose a drive that should be scanned.

Let us take a look at the real time protection which is one of the main features of the free spyware program. The protection is divided into three different areas, namely Application Guard, System Guard and Internet Guard. All three guards can protect several different elements of your system. The System Guard for instance may protect your hosts file which is often used by spyware and phishers to redirect you to fake websites.

The Internet Guard protects your system against Toolbars and Browser Helper Objects among other things which is indeed very useful if you surf the web with the Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Spyware Terminator is a nice program that is in my opinion at least on the same level as Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware. Ad-Aware for instance does not offer realtime protection in the free personal version which is a big plus of Spyware Terminator.

Most inexperienced users should activate the realtime protection feature making it much safer for them to use their computer on the Internet. I honestly never heard of this software before but I can only say that I will recommend it from now on.

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Let me explain my security concept and ask some questions about yours afterwards. The most important part in my security concept is my knowledge. I know what I should do and what I should not do on the Internet. I know how phishing emails look like, I know when I should be doubtful of files that I want to execute and I do know how to select passwords that can not be bruteforced in a short period of time.

Firewall:

I do rely on a hardware firewall that is properly configured keeping many attacks away from my computer. I do however run no software firewall because I think this is a) not necessary because of the hardware firewall and b) could lead to attacks that are not there without it. Every piece of software installed on my system is a potential way to hack my system.

Anti virus:

I use the free AntiVir as a virus scanner. This is probably not the best choice in the world but good free scanners are rare. I keep it running all the time with automatic updates. Nothing compared to commercial products that update once every 30 minutes but good enough to react on all threats that make it on my system. My Knowledge prevents most possible ways of attacking my system with viruses and trojans anyway.

Encryption:

I have two hard drives with more than 500 gigabytes of encrypted data using the excellent Open Source software True Crypt. This is important to prevent local access to my files as long as the hard drives have not been mounted.

Spyware:

Something that I feel is overrated. I tend to run Ad-Aware and Spybot every other week to scan my system but I normally find some tracking cookies, that is all.

Rootkits:

The same can be said for Rootkits. I tend to use Rootkit Revealer or other products to check my system for rootkits but only occasionally. I would never put a Sony CD into my Computer anway ;)

Browsing, Email:

No Microsoft products if possible. I do use Opera and Firefox for web surfing and Thunderbird as my main email client. Both browsers are more secure than Microsofts Internet Explorer and Outlook. Maybe because they are better products, maybe because hackers like to concentrate on Microsoft products because more users are using them.

Did I leave something out ? What is your security concept ? Let me know, I like to read about software or tips that I never thought about in first place.

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The question that I’m asking myself is if you really need the Windows Defender if you have been using programs like ad-aware or spybot before and I think the answer is pretty obvious: No, Windows Defender is not needed. It might be fine for users who do not know and care about spyware and could help those users protect their computers in a more secure way from spyware and spam but everyone else should really stay with the program that they have been using before.

This is backed up by some tests, for instance by Suzi Turner from Zdnet, who used a virtual spyware infected system and tested the efficiency of Windows Defender. She came to the conclusion that Windows Defender was only able to detect 65% to 75% of the Spyware that was installed on the system compared to the commercial programs Spyware Doctor and Spyware Sweeper.

I personally think that Windows Defender is just another program that does not excel in what it should do. The same can be said for other softwares from Microsoft like the Windows Firewall for instance. I would advise everyone to either use other freely available tools to scan and protect your pc from spyware and spam or buy a commercial product that lives up to its promises. It is furthermore a good idea to test your system from time to time with a tool like Hijack This just to make sure nothing bypassed your anti-spyware program.

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The guide is written for the inexperienced user mainly and consists of several parts. The first, called”The Basics: Spotting and Eliminating Threats” suggests to install a firewall, anti-virus software, anti-spyware software and other software like software that detects rootkits. They always recommend some programs that can be downloaded by following the links.

Now that they have covered the basics they tell you to update your operating system and software that is installed on your system. They suggest to use either Opera or Firefox instead of the Internet Explorer, want you to disable file sharing and be cautious when downloading.

As I said all those tips are good for beginners but geeks like we are should have implemented most of their suggestions already.

Next comes safe emailing with suggestions on good e-mail clients, again don’t use Outlook but tools like Thunderbird or Gmail instead. They also tell you to be wary of extensions and be cautious when clicking on links in emails to avoid malicious websites. (phishing). Last but not least you should setup email filters.

The next part deals with protecting your passwords which can be summed up by choosing different passwords that can’t be found using dictionary attacks. They also suggest to password protect the computer which I think is completely useless.

After that they make two suggestions to protect the wireless network which are really basic suggestions, they also suggest not to use the wireless connection of your neighbours because it could be setup for this case. (scanning the data like passwords that are send over the connection)

The last part deals with physical protection: Disguise your laptop and use anti-theft solutions should not bother most users but could be useful for business clients.

As you can see those are basic advices that could help inexperienced users. They miss to cover some topics that could really increase security but require knowledge of the subject. They fail to address the possibility to create a user account in Windows and use this one instead of the admin account. They also miss to mention that not needed services should be turned off, which user needs telnet or remote access anyways ?

I’m also not very fond of software firewalls and would suggest to use a hardware firewall instead. Software firewalls give a false sense of security especially if you are inexperienced.

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Rogue Remover is a little freeware application that scans your hard drives for installed rogue antivirus, antispyware and hard drive utilities and removes them if you choose it. The process is not complicated and even inexperienced users should be able to use rogue remover without help.

Some of the products that Rogue Remover is able to remove are: WinAntiSpyware, WinAntiVirus, SpyAxe, VirusBlast and VirusBursters . A complete list with about one hundred programs is available at the developers homepage.

source: winaddons

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There is a huge difference between a cookie from a website which tracks your movement on that website / network of sites and a software that permanently phones home and transmits information about the computer, the software installed and the user.

Where does it come from ?

Many users are baffled when they find out that spyware is installed on their system. They have no idea how it was installed and most suspect that a malicious virus or worm installed it.

There are numerous ways how spyware can make it into your system:

1. Software:

Spyware could be a standalone software that a user installs on his system. The software is not labeled spyware of course and tries to trick the user most of the time making him believe its something else he is installing.

The second variation is more common, spyware comes bundled with software the user wants to install. Kazaa for instance has been famous for installing spyware in addition to the p2p software itself.

2. Websites:

Sometimes websites prompt the user to install a component or software before he is able to view the website. This can be some harmless plugin that is not installed on the users pc, like the macromedia flash player for instance which is not spyware, or a active x component that could install spyware on the users pc.

Some websites use security holes to install spyware without a prompt at all making it impossible for the average user to find out where this spyware came from.

A good advice would be to use a different browser than the Microsoft internet explorer. Its not a 100% safety measure though. You should never install something that you don´t know about. Better leave the website than installing spyware on your system.

First Look:

Sometimes you can tell that something is wrong with your system without using a program to verify it. It is slower than usual, you see network traffic to a site that you don´t know, a new toolbar appeared in your internet explorer or a webpage loads as the homepage that you did not choose. All of these could have the cause in spyware that was installed on your system.

You could check the task manager and have a look at the active processes of your computer and take a look at the installed software. Maybe this is enough to detect a tool that you did not install. If that is the case you might want to perform a search on the internet for the process or tool to find a solution that removes it again.

You could try to kill the process or uninstall the software but most of the time it is only a matter of time until it will appear again. It´s better to fight the root of the cause.

Good tools that could help you detect spyware are autoruns (lists all programs that are automatically started with windows), process explorer (better version of the process tab of the task manager, more options), Filemon (monitors file activity and shows dependencies) and finally Portmon (shows the systems open ports and applications that use them).

Second look:

If you think that spyware might be installed on your system you should use anti-spyware tools to detect them. No tool is perfect and its wise to use more than one. I suggest ad-aware se and spybot search & destroy for a first scan of the system.

Both tools detect a variety of spyware, ranging from cookies to worms. Just run a default scan and make sure you read the instructions from the homepage and the program itself before removing detected spyware.

Browser Hijacking:

The homepage that opens when you start your browser has been changed and it was not you. If you encounter this phenomena you might be the victim of a browser hijacking. To find out if that is the case use a software like CW-Shredder or Hijackthis to remove the thread and turn things back to normal.

Safety Measures:

1. Install a different browser than Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera are recommended. Use those to surf the web.
2. Keep your system up to date.
3. Know what you are doing. Don´t install suspicious software. Perform a web search before installing the software.
4. Keep your anti-spyware tool up to date. Perform regular scans.
5. Use an anti-virus tool. (antivir, clam)
6. Use a firewall.

Links that educate:

Spywareinfo.com
Spyware Removal Tutorials
Top 10 tricks causing spyware epidemic
Wikipedia Spyware

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