Ohnoes! Spyware!

[Uranium - 235]

What follows is the final transmissions of the U.S.S Cyborg moments before all contact was lost after a concentrated attack by Spyware Ships.

Sys. Ops: Captain we have unconfirmed reports of suspicious activity, possibly spyware!

Sensors: Unidentified objects have appeared in browser... some new toolbar it appears...

Captain: Query the system. I want all spyware accounted for.

Sensors: Captain, something's come up on scope! Twelve... fourty... eighty... over one hundred and seventy spyware ships detected!

Captain: Shields up and prepare weapons, I want all-

Sensors: SPYWARE TORPEDO LAUNCH DETECTED! PREPARE FOR IMPACT!

* BEWM! *

Captain: All hands, damage report!

Sys. Ops: System... losing... stability...

Engineering: We've lost control of the browser! Advertising inbound!

Captain: Launch countermeasures!

Weapons: Countermeasures away!

Engineering: Homepage has been changed! Links rerouting to advertising! Attempting emergency failsafe shutdown!

Sys. Ops: Sir! Something is eating the system from the inside! Icons spontaneously appearing on all decks!

Captain: Weapons! What is your status!

Weapons: We're charging the main system... sustained damage during attack... can't... control...

Sensors: Sir! Another volley inbound!

Captain: Break hard port bearing one five one! Launch countermeasures!

Weapons: Countermeasures away!

Sensors: Fourteen popups inbound sir!

Weapons: Countermeasures missed!

Captain: Prepare for impact!

Sys Ops: We have confirmed reports of 8 installed items running! Sir- we... have- can't... would you like to scan your computer for porn?

Captain: System Operations is damaged!

Sensors: INCOMING SHUTDOWN OF REMOTE PROCEDURE CALL!

Engineering: HULL BUCKLING! PRESSURE LOSS ON ALL DECKS!

Sys Ops: Catastrophic failure of all systems! We're going-

About an hour ago that pretty much happened to me. In the space of 1 minute, I got attacked by every type of spyware I'd ever heard of, ending with the nuclear weapon of spyware attacks: The RPC shutdown. Up until then I'd had absolutely nothing spyware related: It started with all my IE settings getting reset. I cleaned that out and began running ad-aware, when I found all 174 pieces of spyware. The scan was just finishing when suddenly about 60 popups blew my screen away. I fought them back and found icons spontaneously appearing all over my desktop. Then I opened ctrl-alt-delete and began killing as many processes as I could, but more and more just kept popping up. Wondering if I had a trojan or something, I fired up my firewall and blocked the ports. I probably would've been better off unplugging my internet. The firewall didn't stop anything, and suddenly programs started to run. I'm sitting here going nuts fighting it back when admist a barrage of bizarre crap (Including IE launching and randomly browsing advertising pages) I get the RPC shutdown message. That was it, the CYBORG (Name of my comp) took a catastrophic hit and I reached over and cut the power.


I've spent the last hour cleaning up the chemical spill that's overtaken my computer.

[Venmoch]

Use the new Mozilla Firebird class shielding. It prevents all those nasty spyware exploits in the Internet Explorer Class Shielding.

I also take it you are using both the Adware Diagnosis Utility and the SpyBot Search And Destroy Anti Intrusion Computer Database Algorythms

[Black Mage]

one word:
firebird

the actually bothered to fix security holes, and everyone's too lazy to find gecko's weak points

[BobTheJanitor]

Don't forget http://housecall.antivirus.com for your free online virus scan.

Also http://download.com.com/redir?pid=10227352...4-10227352.html
Get HijackThis from that link, but be warned, it's a powerful tool. Run it but don't delete everything that it finds without first reading what it is you're deleting. It effectively finds EVERYTHING that's changed your browser in any way. So maybe you don't want to delete your flash plugin or such like. But it will get rid of browser hijacks that even adaware and spybot won't find.

[lolfighter]

And remember to always click 'no' in the future, that's one of the best ways of keeping your computer clean. Works for me at least.

[Uranium - 235]

And remember to always click 'no' in the future, that's one of the best ways of keeping your computer clean. Works for me at least.

Funny thing is the only thing I've installed in the past 2 days is The Specialists.

[Niteowl]

And remember to always click 'no' in the future, that's one of the best ways of keeping your computer clean. Works for me at least.

Funny thing is the only thing I've installed in the past 2 days is The Specialists.

IE has lots of nifty stuff that ties in with yer OS to let ppl crack and mess around with your computer. so you don't need to install anything really, just be using IE when visiting.. er.. non-mainstream sites.

[lolfighter]

And we all know what those are, right?
*gives Uranium a disappointed, though not surprised look*

[Black Mage]

firebird is good for you

[Uranium - 235]

Not going to use one of those communist 3rd party browsers. (Remembers back when a friend had me try Opera and it not only completely broke my internet and computer, but when it was working 90% of websites wouldn't work properly)

[Niteowl]

Not going to use one of those communist 3rd party browsers. (Remembers back when a friend had me try Opera and it not only completely broke my internet and computer, but when it was working 90% of websites wouldn't work properly)

it's open source, not third party. it's basically a faster, more secure version of netscape/mozilla.

[Uranium - 235]

Not going to use one of those communist 3rd party browsers. (Remembers back when a friend had me try Opera and it not only completely broke my internet and computer, but when it was working 90% of websites wouldn't work properly)

it's basically netscape.

Number one reason not to use it ^^

[devicenull]

Get Mozilla (full version, still free) and you are protected from IE and outlook (please tell me you aren't using outlook
...
Google SpywareGuard, that seems to work (I guess, it hasn't picked anything up)
Or play with the security settings for IE (i'd still reccommend a diff browser)

[JHunz]

Also make sure you use Windows Update - you shouldn't be getting RPC shutdown crap if you're properly updated.

[Black Mage]

Not going to use one of those communist 3rd party browsers. (Remembers back when a friend had me try Opera and it not only completely broke my internet and computer, but when it was working 90% of websites wouldn't work properly)

it's basically netscape.

Number one reason not to use it ^^

actually no, its not netscape. mozilla didn't like it so they rewrote gecko and built firebird around it. meaning fast and stable (and secure) and it lets you wipe cache/cookies with one click

[Niteowl]

Not going to use one of those communist 3rd party browsers. (Remembers back when a friend had me try Opera and it not only completely broke my internet and computer, but when it was working 90% of websites wouldn't work properly)

it's basically netscape.

Number one reason not to use it ^^

actually no, its not netscape. mozilla didn't like it so they rewrote gecko and built firebird around it. meaning fast and stable (and secure) and it lets you wipe cache/cookies with one click

ooo!! interesting little tidbit! thankee sai

i think someone gets a title for that.

[Black Mage]

<3

err ... to make this post useful:

firebird also used to be called phoenix, then what i think happened was they made this *great* email client called thunderbird, and i dont know the name of any mythical thunder-birds so they probably changed it so they sounded like sister programs

Firebird
Thunderbird

only problem with thunderbird is its only pop3 and imap (no httpmail for hotmailers) so, to convert httpmail into pop3, readable by thunderbird.
The Hotmail Popper
oh yeah, thunderbird also has a 'smart' junkmail filter

and to finish: more secure. less exploits. safer system.