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Your Computer May Be Infected. Here's How To Check..
By Fazly Mohamed, Fri Dec 9th
A recent research revealed that 80% of the computers today isinfected with these dangerous and most of the users arenot aware of it. (Your computer could be infected by now too.)The most dangerous fact is, even though the anti-virus softwareis running, these software can even pass it and take over yourPC. Have you experienced any of the following? * Awesome popups comeout of nowhere, when browsing the web * Home page reset to someother site How can this happen?
- The components installed when viewing certain sites, starts upand running as soon as it's finished installing (or after thepage is completely loaded) and with every windows startup sincethen. Their job is to collect information and report (ortransfer) it to an external computer. What is deceptive software? (Reference: www.microsoft.com)---------------------------------------------- Spyware and unauthorized adware are two examples of "deceptive"software. Deceptive software includes programs which take overyour home page or search page without first getting yourpermission. There are a number of ways deceptive software canget on your system. A common trick is to covertly install thesoftware during the installation of other software you want suchas a music or video file sharing program. Whenever you are installing something on your computer, makesure you carefully read all disclosures, including the licenseagreement and privacy statement. Sometimes the inclusion ofadware in a given software installation is documented, but itmay appear at the end of a license agreement or privacystatement. Sometimes deceptive software gets silently installed on yoursystem without any warning at all. If you use Internet Exploreras your Web browser, this can happen if your Internet Explorersecurity setting is set to its lowest value. Make sure to keepthis setting at the medium level or higher. Doing so will helpyou control what is being installed on your computer. Have you ever had an experience where you were repeatedly askedto accept a download even after you said "no"? Creators ofdeceptive software often use such tricks to get you to loadtheir software. If this happens to you, do not click "yes".Instead, try to close the Web page that first asked you toaccept the download by hitting the "X" in the corner of thewindow. Alternatively, quit Internet Explorer and restart it tobegin browsing the Internet again. If you visit a Web page thatcontinually displays these tricky pop-up windows, that Web sitemay not be worthy of your trust. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Your computer may be infected by now, but you may not know.Just have a checkup with a software specifically designed forit, to know the current status of your computer. You must cleaninfections once you find it but you can't top it at that. Thespyware might reinfect your PC. So it's highly recommended thatyou run a firewall on your system after the clean up. This willallow you to monitor every single communication that occursbetween your computer and the external world and block the onesthat are harmful. The firewall acts as a barrier between your PCand the external world (Internet / Network). A good detector recommended by most people is, NoAdwareat http://noadware.cjb.net and it shows you all the infectionsand potential dangers in great
detail. It's free to scan but notto clean. It's a good idea to have a scan even if you have noidea of cleaning, since you will know the status of your PC ingreat detail - at least you will know whether you have anyspyware on your PC at all! (Most of the time it's there, but youdon't know! So, don't be surprised to get a list of over 30suspicious components detected!) Scanning will also give theadvantage of giving a try to clean it out, provided that theinfections are minor and you (or a friend) have a fair knowledgeon windows file system. (Registry settings, Cookies etc. and howto modify them.) You must run a firewall. In many new operating systems(eg.Windows XP), there is a built-in firewall. Google search on howto activate it. Others may try one at http://www.download.com You may have a question by now. What is the purpose of thesespyware? Even though we cannot give an explicit and clear cutanswer, we can safely state that everything boils down to theurge of more profits. How? The collects all yourpersonal information and transfers it to an external computer.The information is reviewed by a software in the receivingcomputer and then delivered targeted popup ads to the infectedPC. There are many things that does in addition to this. If you have some technical knowledge about your PC, here's atechnical explanation on what trouble does the cause. 1. An extra process is running to monitor and log youractivities. 2. Constant transfer is taking place between your PCand the server. (This is a two-way transfer) Firstly, the extra process in itself is an undesired process andit contributes to slow down your PC. Second point is the mostharmful. It transfers logged info on the infected PC to theexternal PC (Spyware server) and then the external PC transferstargeted popups to the infected PC. (Targeted popups are popupads that are delivered based on user interests. User interestsare analyzed by special software running on the server,using information transferred by your PC as input.) Since manyextra processes are running (eg: monitoring processes,transferring processes etc.), your RAM (memory) will be sharedand as a result, your PC will run slower. This also slows downyour Internet connection speed because a lot of transfer istaking place and your total available bandwidth is shared. In short, PC with is like a dumping ground for snakes.Once its there up and running, it can do almost anything withyour PC. * NOTE: A useful tip - When you clean up your PC and close thedoor for those harmful programs with a firewall, you can blockmany popups. But still, there can be some popups. There arepopups integrated to websites you visit, and we must to dosomething about them. There are many popup blockers available onthe net, but I highly recommend installing the Google toolbar,which has a quality pop-up blocker integrated to it. It also hassome other useful features and is highly customizable. Downloadit free at http://toolbar.google.com. The most risk is for people who use Internet Explorer, as it isthe most popular web browser and that very fact has drawn moreattention of many malicious software developers. All of us wantto make our PCs good and clean, right? So advise your friendsabout this, or if you had this article by email, just forward it. Happy surfing... About the author:By: Fazly Mohamed - fazlymohamed@yahoo.com (Undergraduate atStaff. University UK, Computing & IT)
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