Sunday 11 December 2005

The Protect-Your-PC post


Hello again. Spyware, Malware and Adware can be one harmful and at the same time annoying. Spyware is define as software that sends information about your web surfing habits back to another website. Often you may notice popups appearing at odd times or you may notice that your web browser's home page has been redirected to another site. Even if you dont get popups or browser issues, I strongly recommend taking some of the procedures listed below as no PC is immune to spyware.

Step 1 : Viruses
To start off with, take a free virus scan from either Panda Activescan or Housecall. If the scans show that you have viruses click Delete to remove all infections

Step 2 : Windows Update
Many people don't seem to have Windows Updates turned on. This can often lead to consequences such as Viruses and backdoor exploits, so therefore turn it ON. To do this, head on over to the Windows Update website and download and install all critical updates for your PC.

Step 3 : Scan for Adware/Malware
One of the most common adware is 'Coolwebsearch'. To check whether your PC is infected by it, download CWSShredder, extract the file, run the program and remove infections if there are any present.

Download Ad-Aware SE Personal, a free spyware removal tool. Once you download it, be sure to run the update tool before scanning to get all the latest spyware definitions.
Or if you are running Windows 200, XP or Server 2003 download Microsoft AntiSpyware (beta) from here.

Next, download HijackThis from here (Download zip, extract, store in its own folder e.g. C://HijackThis)

Once you have done this, click Scan. After it finishes scanning your PC, you will get a list of items similiar to the one show in the picture above. To analyse these results, hit Save log, save the log somewhere on your PC and head on over to this site to analyse the results. If you have any problems or need help, leave a comment on this post (Click the title to leave a comment).

Some parts taken from this article.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have you tried HijackRemote http://www.hijackremote.com, it connects you with a network of HijackThis analysts to clean spyware automatically, by a real person. Kind of a shortcut to posting hijackthis logs in forums.