Spyware following spam into the enterprise

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Re: Enemy of the good

Anton Philidor wrote:
> In short, the more you ask people to do, the
> less likely they are to do anything at all.
> Stick to what's possible.

I agree, but my post was not intended to be a primer on prevention. It was about what to do with a Windows PC that is already loaded with exploits.

That being said, I think it is time that home PC users take responsibility for the health of their own PCs, especially if they are going to connect them to the internet. The problem is not that we expect too much of people, but that we expect too little. We don't let just anyone drive a car; they have to pass written and driving tests first (in most states it's both). Maybe it's time PC users pass a basic computing security proficiency test before they are allowed to connect to the internet, with ISPs overseeing the testing. The customer's PC could be quarantined into a roped-off subnet by the ISP until the customer and their PC pass muster. The testing could be web-based and automated, as could be the scanning of the customer's PC for the presence of properly installed and configured anti-virus/spyware/trojan software and a two-way software firewall. Once it passes, release/renew the IP address to give them an address on the public subnet.

Yeah... that'll never happen. And maybe it shouldn't, but I *am* getting tired of coworkers, friends, acquaintances, etc. calling me constantly begging for help because they don't know anything about their PCs and they're loaded with garbage that is spamming and DoS'ing the rest of us. Microsoft's upcoming SP2 for Windows XP with its two-way internet firewall turned on by default and loaded at startup before the rest of the networking services is a huge step in the right direction, but I think something like 80% of all Windows users are still on a pre-XP version. Long way to go...

Anyway, since you brought it up (maintenance), here are my tips for prevention:

1) If you are going to use Windows, especially with Internet Explorer as your web browser, download and install SpywareBlaster (it's free) from Java Cool Software (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com). Instead of scanning for and removing spyware it prevents it from being installed via Internet Explorer in the first place. (Of course, do this after running multiple scanning tools to rid your PC of exploits first.) SpywareBlaster works very much like anti-virus, with a simple point and click mechanism for updating its spyware definition database. It works by setting kill bits in the registry that prevent the installation of known bad ActiveX controls, and by blocking known bad web sites. *Much* easier than trying to get people to manually configure IE settings to achieve the same result, and since it works like anti-virus the learning curve is practically nil.

2) Windows users: switch to Mozilla FireFox browser or maybe Opera or some other third party browser. Same goes for Outlook/Outlook Express -- switch to another e-mail client. Do a Google search on "free e-mail client" to turn up lots of options.

3) Buy a Mac.

4) Switch to Linux. Pick a distro, any distro (http://www.distrowatch.com).

Corporate tools are coming for automating this stuff for the Windows desktop world, which is great for us Novell shops who don't use Active Directory or Windows domains. But I hope you don't think numbers 1 and/or 2 are too much to ask of the approximately 95% of PC users on the planet who use Windows. Microsoft still needs to drastically improve browser security, especially with default settings, but until that happens for 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP via a patch or service pack, letting users off the hook so easily doesn't help.

Posted by: crm_z   Posted on: 06/01/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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