Cheetah go pop... and pop.. and pop again. (Grr!)

[coppercheetah]

I have a perhaps skewed view about computer viruses. On the one hand, they *are* malicious code: I will never deny that there are very, very few viruses whose purpose in its transmission is something

Comments

[jareth_atian]

The vast majority of virii seem to me to be the digital equivalent of vandalism. Sometimes petty, sometimes massively destructive. Generally, a virus is not 'directed'; the writer of the virus isn't trying to specifically break *your* stuff...instead, the writer of the virus just likes breaking stuff and *your* stuff just happens to be within range.

Spyware/adware, however, seem to be more personal. Once the application has been installed on the client machine then that specific user is targeted and manipulated. A con artist without any artistry, the perpetrator sprays out their bots and applications with no personal investment or risk. Slime, slime, slime-ity-slime!

(A real con artist should have more pride in their work!)

[koogrr]

What were you hit with? How did you detect it? Was removal more complex than starting in safe mode and deleting registry entries? I've got a Linux Boot CD with a bunch of Win hacking tools that in theory allows fixing from another OS, but it has only worked so far in theory.

Ad Aware, Spybot, couldn't find and take care of these things? There's only so much screwing around with the Computer I can take (for fun).

[coppercheetah]

In this case it was two pieces of adware: Integrated Search Technologies (IST), and A Better Internet (ABI). Detection was easy--when you suddenly are getting browser popups for porn scanners, taking surveys, and having exciting offers available and you don't have a browser even open, you've got adware.

Removal, on the other hand, was both file removal and registry removal in Safe Mode. In IST's case, it also left a duped copy of a .dll behind that Norton did not catch and did not know about that then reinfected the systen with ABI's adware, which upon removal of one of it's 'additional features' (an "intenet optimizer") caused yet *another* piece of adware to be installed, and only activate once there was an Internet connection. Otherwise, it lay dormant.

AdAware and Spybot both missed these as well. They've evolved them, apparently, to leave extra files AdAware's not, er, aware of.

[rindis]

Ugh!

That's getting pretty nasty.

Been thinking about some of the other comments. I suppose the real difference in approach between malware and adware is this:

Virii generally try to fool you into letting it in by making you interested in it (under false pretenses) and wanting to click the link/open the file/what have you. After that it either goes on to do acts of impersonal vandalism, or hides from sight, so that you don't notice it and it can do its own thing (bots).

Adware lives and breathes by making sure it's got your full attention. The attitude seems to be the polar opposite of the above. It assumes you would have to be interested in whatever banality it comes up with, ignoring what your desires may be. I guess it is the imposition of someone else's desires onto your own that generates as least some of the slimyness