Hi Everybody!

A cautionary tale.............

I just got Norton Internet Security 2003 as an upgrade from 2002 which I was previously running.

Following installation, it asks you to decide which of the many internet enabled programs on your computer you want to be warned about when they try to access the internet.

Since I am a bit paranoid I set every program where I did not know what it did to "ask".

Almost immediately I was informed that two programs "GMT.exe" and "cmesys.exe" were trying to access the internet.

I did a search on Google and found that both these programs are spyware/adware.

I was very surprised since I thought I was quite security concious.

To cut a long story short it is most likely that these malicious programs were able to be placed on my computer by parties unknown because I was behind on updading my windows with the latest security patches.

I have now successfully removed these intruders with "Ad-aware" which I downloaded free from Lavasoft.

If you want to check to see if you have these progs on you computer the quickest way to check is by looking for them in "Task Manager". If you have them they run themselves at startup.

I am considering having one of my credit cards cancelled for fear that the details have been stolen, since I made an internet purchase during the period my system was compromised.

Just be careful out there exepecially if you have permanent broadband connection like I do!

Cheers

Hello

Ad-Aware doesn't pick up everything, I would suggest running SpyBot ( http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=start ) AS WELL.

Steve.

** Edited for url correction **

[Edited by boxst - 7/15/2003 1:33:40 PM]

following 'boxst' suggestion, i have downloaded and run Spybot - it turned up 127 incidences of spyware!!!!
I had run Adware immediately before, and it had turned up nothing??

recommended - tks to Boxst

alan

[Edited by albob - 7/15/2003 11:18:37 PM]

UNBELIEVABLE!

Thanks

You should download the reference file updates for Ad Aware. Yoiu do it from within the program on the Version 6.x. I use spybot, adaware and hijackthis and between them, updates installed etc, they always manage to find something that the others dont.

Cheers,

Nick.

spot on boxst, spybot is much better than adaware.

shunty

nick, to be fair to Adware my version is seriously Out-of-Date!!
thanks for the advice


alan

following Nicks advice, I have updated my Adware to version 6
guess what - It found 97 incidences of Spyware!! I only ran
Spybot yesterday !
This is getting scary - or am I becoming paranoid? :) :(

alan

No, you are being sensible. All these kinds of programs rely on people's ignorance to be successful. People think I'm paranoid because of the stuff that I run on my PC. It's not paranoia, it's called working in IT Security which means I know a lot more about what is out there than the 'average' user.

Ad-aware and Spybot are very good. Spybot is more comprehensive, but I have found instances where Ad-aware has found things that Spybot did not. So I would run both. Another good program you can run is Spyware Blaster - you can find a reference to it in Spybot. Basically it sits in the background and stops the downloading of any known spyware program - very good protection and you would be amazed at the number of 'legitimate' sites that use this stuff.

Needs to be updated manually every now and again, but it is very effective.

Chris

Yep, that's exactly what I meant by one finding thigs that the others didn't and vice-versa.

Spyware Blaster is top notch.
Recommended !
:)

I use ad-ware 6 because it’s easy. I tried spybot and it frightened me, it found allsorts and I did not know what to delete and what to keep because some times you still need to keep some that it finds.

How does one know what to delete and what not to?

Also how can I up date my ad-aware?

Thanks chel xxx

Top advice guys, thanks!

I ran AdAware a couple of days ago, but after an update, it found another 6 items!! :eek:

I've installed Spybot, again ran the update, and it found another 9 items!!! :eek:

I'm starting to get paranoid now!! :o

[Edited by Andy Tang - 7/17/2003 10:47:29 PM]