Smashing the Spyware Record

[mobobuff]

2/3rds of our business where I work comes from spyware. People who are too inept to browse the internet without giving their computer Herpes.

The old record was 921 pieces of Spyware reported with Ad-Aware 6.0

Today I was working on an HP Pavilion laptop owned by a blonde dits that I used to go to school with. 72 running processes on start-up and 2,334 pieces of spyware found by Ad-Aware. The program took 8 minutes to remove it all. Included in the running processes were every P2P program you can think of... BearShare, WinMX, iMesh, KaZaA, Morpheus and a few others... all in all it took about 4 solid minutes for XP to finish loading.

Oh, she also had Bobax, Sasser, Blaster and 2 flavors of SoBig. All-in-all, I made a cool $80 just for that job.

 

[vi edit]

I think the only way to truely save that things soul was a format and be a born again O/S.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
I think the only way to truely save that things soul was a format and be a born again O/S.

 

[BigJ]

2,334 ain't that bad. My personal best is over 5,000 with 33 viruses and it took over 22 minutes to load Windows XP. Even when it was loaded, I couldn't do anything so I spent another 15 minutes opening up task manager, closing one program at a time till I could use Windows Explorer and the Start Menu.

Edit: And I went back the next week and guess what! 2 new viruses and over 200 instances of spyware.

 

[DnetMHZ]

Originally posted by: BigJ
2,334 ain't that bad. My personal best is over 5,000 with 33 viruses and it took over 22 minutes to load Windows XP. Even when it was loaded, I couldn't do anything so I spent another 15 minutes opening up task manager, closing one program at a time till I could use Windows Explorer and the Start Menu.

Edit: And I went back the next week and guess what! 2 new viruses and over 200 instances of spyware.

j0o suck at t3h computers..

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: mobobuff
2/3rds of our business where I work comes from spyware. People who are too inept to browse the internet without giving their computer Herpes.

The old record was 921 pieces of Spyware reported with Ad-Aware 6.0

Today I was working on an HP Pavilion laptop owned by a blonde dits that I used to go to school with. 72 running processes on start-up and 2,334 pieces of spyware found by Ad-Aware. The program took 8 minutes to remove it all. Included in the running processes were every P2P program you can think of... BearShare, WinMX, iMesh, KaZaA, Morpheus and a few others... all in all it took about 4 solid minutes for XP to finish loading.

Oh, she also had Bobax, Sasser, Blaster and 2 flavors of SoBig. All-in-all, I made a cool $80 just for that job.

I beat you a few weeks ago cleaning up some guys family computer. Obviously they clicked on any and everything and it was a beeyatch to work on. I only charged him $50.00, though.

 

[austin316]

Originally posted by: mobobuff
2/3rds of our business where I work comes from spyware. People who are too inept to browse the internet without giving their computer Herpes.

The old record was 921 pieces of Spyware reported with Ad-Aware 6.0

Today I was working on an HP Pavilion laptop owned by a blonde dits that I used to go to school with. 72 running processes on start-up and 2,334 pieces of spyware found by Ad-Aware. The program took 8 minutes to remove it all. Included in the running processes were every P2P program you can think of... BearShare, WinMX, iMesh, KaZaA, Morpheus and a few others... all in all it took about 4 solid minutes for XP to finish loading.

Oh, she also had Bobax, Sasser, Blaster and 2 flavors of SoBig. All-in-all, I made a cool $80 just for that job.

do you own your own business?

 

[mobobuff]

That's basically what I told my manager, but he suggested I try cleaning it up anyway. It's clean now, but you can tell it's pretty beaten from the raping the spyware and viruses did.

She would have crapped up a new OS within a month anyway, what she needs is a lesson in using the intraweb. If it comes in again like this I'm suggesting we install Linspire, both to confuse her with it to the point of not downloading crap, and to lessen the virus threat.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: mobobuff
2/3rds of our business where I work comes from spyware. People who are too inept to browse the internet without giving their computer Herpes.

The old record was 921 pieces of Spyware reported with Ad-Aware 6.0

Today I was working on an HP Pavilion laptop owned by a blonde dits that I used to go to school with. 72 running processes on start-up and 2,334 pieces of spyware found by Ad-Aware. The program took 8 minutes to remove it all. Included in the running processes were every P2P program you can think of... BearShare, WinMX, iMesh, KaZaA, Morpheus and a few others... all in all it took about 4 solid minutes for XP to finish loading.

Oh, she also had Bobax, Sasser, Blaster and 2 flavors of SoBig. All-in-all, I made a cool $80 just for that job.

I would have charged her over $100 and told her that a reformat was in order.

 

[J0hnny]

Haha, it's even worse at the company I work for.

They say that only approved programs can be installed so they restrict everything to prevent spyware and they also use websense. It's pretty good so far, BUT, some idiot approved the use of some program called date manager where it includes GATOR!

So now we have THOUSANDS of machines installed with gator. It makes me sick!

 

[vi edit]

1) download AVG for free and install it, have it do updates every day
2) switch her over to firefox so half the spyware (if not more) doesn't come back
3) set her up on a limited user account so software can't install itself

 

[mobobuff]

Posted by BigJ

2,334 ain't that bad. My personal best is over 5,000 with 33 viruses and it took over 22 minutes to load Windows XP. Even when it was loaded, I couldn't do anything so I spent another 15 minutes opening up task manager, closing one program at a time till I could use Windows Explorer and the Start Menu.

Edit: And I went back the next week and guess what! 2 new viruses and over 200 instances of spyware.

Holy mother of bajesus. Microsoft should conduct an experiment to see how much Spyware their OSs can handle before completely crapping out (other than the normal crapping out).

Posted by austin316

do you own your own business?

I wish, but I do manage the Tech Bench (where all the computers come to), our company offers pc service, wireless internet service, and we proxy for Nextel distribution.

 

[Amused]

BTW, at this point is where you disable the ability to download stuff. I did that for my GF's mother. People have to send her CDs with pictures now.

 

[mobobuff]

Well if I did that she'd be in the next day complaining that she can't install her LimeWires and iMeshes, and if I flat out told her when she comes to pick it up that she won't be able to install programs any longer she'd probably start flipping out and complaining like OMGWTFBBIMESHISGREAT!1lol

Anyway, I left AVG on there and had SpyBot immunize it with the new detection definitions, so hopefully those defenses hold for at least a month until she's in here again complaining that the Porn Zapper she downloaded opened 50 IE windows and crashed XP.

 

[vi edit]

Well if I did that she'd be in the next day complaining that she can't install her LimeWires and iMeshes,

Tough sh!t! Those have ZERO business use, and are a huge liability for your company. It sucks up bandwith and makes your company legally liable because she's downloading on your 'net connection. Companies can, and have been sued for employees under their roof that are stealing software, movies, and music.

You are actually an accessory by blatently allowing it.

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
1) download AVG for free and install it, have it do updates every day
2) switch her over to firefox so half the spyware (if not more) doesn't come back
3) set her up on a limited user account so software can't install itself

firefox has a huge memory leak...

people around here bitched about itunes being a system hog, firefox is far worse.

 

[Schadenfroh]

meh, that is nothing, at school we had a pc that had over 3,200 objects in adaware 6. I brought it back from the dead with a little help from spybot, cwshredder, adaware, hijackthis, and housecall. Had to reboot about 3 times to fully clean it and i did it for free.

 

[Atomicus]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Haha, it's even worse at the company I work for.

They say that only approved programs can be installed so they restrict everything to prevent spyware and they also use websense. It's pretty good so far, BUT, some idiot approved the use of some program called date manager where it includes GATOR!

So now we have THOUSANDS of machines installed with gator. It makes me sick!

OMG I remember the days of when GATOR was lurking in my HD. Doesn't it come with the ad-supported Divx player?

 

[Fritzo]

Our office record is 2194...you got us beat They had a P4 2.8ghz PC and it had 18 RUNNING PROCESSES!!! All that computing power to generate ads heheheh.

 

[imported_vr6]

since we are on this topic, other then setting my parents as limited account, what can i do to prevent them from installing ANY additonal software on their computer?

It sucks having to go in there and find random applications installed.

 

[RussianSoldier]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Haha, it's even worse at the company I work for.

They say that only approved programs can be installed so they restrict everything to prevent spyware and they also use websense. It's pretty good so far, BUT, some idiot approved the use of some program called date manager where it includes GATOR!

So now we have THOUSANDS of machines installed with gator. It makes me sick!

GAH! I never could understand how to get websense to work correctly. I switched to Lightspeed Systems. Its so much easier to configure and view reports on. I love looking at the searching engine queries and following up on the "farm sex" "animal sex" "porn" and "slutty whores" inquiries. Some people just dont know how to search...

 

[Kelemvor]

Our record is 573 or so. Did any of you get screenshots of the totals?

 

[Gurck]

Dear lord, people really need to learn some basic stuff before going online... Should be like driving, where you have to get a permit first

 

[Chunkee]

Originally posted by: BigJ
2,334 ain't that bad. My personal best is over 5,000 with 33 viruses and it took over 22 minutes to load Windows XP. Even when it was loaded, I couldn't do anything so I spent another 15 minutes opening up task manager, closing one program at a time till I could use Windows Explorer and the Start Menu.

Edit: And I went back the next week and guess what! 2 new viruses and over 200 instances of spyware.

keeps us in business

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: BigJ
2,334 ain't that bad. My personal best is over 5,000 with 33 viruses and it took over 22 minutes to load Windows XP. Even when it was loaded, I couldn't do anything so I spent another 15 minutes opening up task manager, closing one program at a time till I could use Windows Explorer and the Start Menu.

Edit: And I went back the next week and guess what! 2 new viruses and over 200 instances of spyware.

You kidding? 2334 IS pretty bad. The running processes is what is actually the clincher- those are active programs running in the backgroud.