help for a friend with tons of spyware & viruses - Page 3

14-09-2005, 08:28

try setting up a new user and delete all files from old user. Failing that stuff it format machine create a ghost image and tell her if it happens again she loses everything and just ghost it back. Ive done this amazing how the will to save valuble mp3s makes then try harder to be careful

14-09-2005, 08:40

Is it wise to have so many anti-spyware programmes installed and running ? I agree with the Clean Format of the PC as a start and then installing just the one anti-virus/spyware programme. Set the PC up so the kid has no administrator privilages whatsoever and password everything you can.

AndrewJ · 14-09-2005, 11:15

Put her Windows ME on then she will BSOD whenever she tries to do anything.

Anonymouse · 14-09-2005, 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by NEONKNIGHT

Is it wise to have so many anti-spyware programmes installed and running ?

With all the junk floating around the Internet even on legit sites? Yes, it damn well is. I might point out that the very first piece of scumware my PC caught - that damn Sasser worm - came from NTL itself. It wasn't there until I gave my Win 2000 partition Internet access, and it was there immediately afterwards - and I hadn't browsed any site other than NTL's home page (needless to say, less than three hours after this, I'd downloaded the Microsoft patch, bought & installed McAfee Firewall and bought VirusScan Online

). So if our own ISP isn't entirely safe, it behooves all of us to protect ourselves as much as possible.

Which means staying away from Kazaa and MSN, of course.

Besides, not all anti-spyware programs are running all the time; Ad-Aware, Spybot and HijackThis, to name three, don't do anything until you run them - it's the commercial third party software such as NAV, McAfee, Panda and ZA that run in the background. If you have broadband, they must run continuously, because broadband is of course an always-on service, unlike dialup. Ironic that we were actually safer back then, isn't it?

There was a time that such software was an option, and the vast majority of Internet users simply didn't need it. That time is now long past. Protection is now a necessity. Even Microsoft has, finally, woken up to this; they've created their own AV software which, I believe, effectively becomes part of Windows. Windows has until now had no AV measures incorporated into it.

Hopefully the issue of IE's vulnerability to ActiveX controls will be addressed in IE7. We shall see.

bdav · 14-09-2005, 20:41

So, have you had a prod in the cache and history folder? Print out the history list and place it in subtle places in the house.
__________________

And in future - make a script/batch file that runs periodicly to backup the history

marky · 14-09-2005, 20:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by bdav

So, have you had a prod in the cache and history folder? Print out the history list and place it in subtle places in the house.

its a mates pc across the road, and it is now unplugged from the internet pending full wipe & reinstall
it is then having net nanny set very high and no admin rights
he has asked me to be admin so even he cant mess it up

bdav · 14-09-2005, 20:47

Set net nanny to log, email you and display some nasty message! That should scare her!

marky · 15-09-2005, 23:12

Thanks for all the feedback, ive shown the evidence to his wife

and guess what, its still not there daughters fault

so on that i'm not going to help again when it clusters

Anonymouse · 16-09-2005, 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by marky

Thanks for all the feedback, ive shown the evidence to his wife

and guess what, its still not there daughters fault

so on that i'm not going to help again when it clusters

That's absurd. If the girl has her own account, if that's the only one she's been using, and that the log shows her account was used to let the stuff in, then how can it not be her fault?

Never mind. You tried. The only thing you can really do now is leave 'em to it.