Attention DUers: If you use Spybot to detect spyware, read this.

[Fly by night]

As someone who is involved in both election integrity and medical marijuana campaigns here in "seemingly-Red" Tennessee, I use both McAfee and Spybot to regularly scan my computer for malicious spyware and to block it. However, over the last month, I have noticed that my Spybot scans were detecting nothing, whereas before it would always find a few creepy-crawlies on my hard-drive. I have also noticed that, when I was on-line, my computer was sending and receiving many, many megabytes of something that seemed unconnected to what I was doing.

After yet another Spybot scan that turned up nothing, I wrote the Spybot moderator to ask if there was some way I could do a more thorough scan of my hard-drive. Amazingly, I got a response back right away as follows:

"Please run Spybot - Search & Destroy and switch to "Advanced mode" via the menu bar item "Mode" and select "Settings" --> "File Sets" in the left bar. There, please right-click somewhere into the list and choose "select all available checks". Then run a scan."

Well, folks, I just did that and found 105 (!!!) previously undetected spywares on my system. I have since erased them and find (not surprising) that my system is no longer sending and receiving "stuff" that is not under my control. (At least I hope so.)

So if you also use Spybot, you might try this process. What you find might be as concerning to you as it was to me. If so, post a note here and/or K&R for more visibility.

OK, that's my good deed for today. Have a good weekend, all y'all.

[lapfog_1]

1. Thanks, mine was already set to advanced mode

but the file sets was not set to all available checks.

So... Thanks!

[nc4bo]

2. Don't have this problem but did want to say thanks for looking out for us. nt

[CurtEastPoint]

5. Thanks...am doing so now! Good info... n/t

[tandot]

3. Thanks for letting us know. K & R

[drm604]

4. K&R

Kicking for good advice.

Mine was setup correctly, apparently by default. I wonder how yours got changed, and I wonder why you're picking up so much junk.

[Fly by night]

9. My guess is that the Rethugs who (somehow) won control of our unverifiable election process here ...

... want to keep it that way. They will stop at nothing to keep our DREs.

To wit, read this OP I posted last summer, entitled "A visit from the TN Bureau of Investigation to my humble home (just now)":

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5908269

[TNDemo]

6. Does spybot work on Apples?

I used to use it on my windows computer but haven't tried it on this one.

[no limit]

8. Nothing good really works on over priced apples, sorry

:)

[denem]

22. Idiot. The Spyware doesn't work on unix (Mac OSX) in the first place.

Spyware needs administrative rights to function effectively. Unix requires a password. Spyware software doesn't have the password.

[Born Free]

31. Never had a problem...

I hear and read about these types of problems all the time but it appears to be associated with using Microsoft products rather than Linux or Mac. Two things that Widowns users always seemed to ask about when switching to linux were virus protection and disk fragmentation. Some one told me they no longer have to defrag the windows drive and I guess they will soon get a handle on the spyware/virus problem as well - unless it is part of the business program to make more sales, in that case they would continue to keep things as they are hoping to make more sales selling add on products to protect the systems. I don't normally use windows so I am only going by things coworkers say. I do have a legal copy of XP that I run in a Virtualbox session on rare occasions.

on edit: Windows users that are tired of it could easily use a live cd such as the one from Linux Mint that has everything you need to access the internet and watch YouTube videos etc and it works completely in the computers ram, so when you turn off the computer everything you did disappears. The live cd boots up perfectly with Verizon Fios or Comcast broadband, you just wait a couple minutes and click on Firefox and enjoy - no need to use the hard drive or install anything, and your windows computer is safe from anything attacking it. It's easy to use, put the disk in reboot the computer and allow it to boot up from the cd and enjoy the internet, play music, you can even hook in you iPod and play music from that or use a flash drive to save files you download. No set up, no way to hurt your computer, no costs other than a blank cd and no problems with virus or spyware, and nothing left on your computer (good for individuals that like to watch videos, read things they don't want others to know about)

http://www.linuxmint.com/

[tXr]

46. Linux Mint is a great distro.

I ran it as a live CD for a while and liked it so much I installed it on an Acer netbook and an HP laptop. Runs flawlessly on both.

[no limit]

43. Before you call me an idiot you might want to learn how user accounts actually work

You do not need administrative privileges to install spyware/viruses; a spyware or virus can still infect your local profile even if that profile has no administrative privileges. The reason people dont waste their time writing widespread mac viruses is because you can't really make something that is widespread if it will only affect 5% of the computer population. So in that sense yes, a mac is safer. Just as vxWorks, windowsCE, etc, are safer. Safer does not mean better. But hey, what does this idiot know, its not like I do this for a living or anything (oh wait, yeah, actually I do).

Vista/Win7 User Account Control (cancel/allow) is based on the same principle that you never run as an administrator, yet people still get infected.

[TicketyBoo]

32. The truth of the matter is

nothing much bad really works on Macs. My sympathies go to those of you who have to worry about such things.

[Scout]

37. idiot

:rofl:

[no limit]

44. You should check out this awesome game called COD Modern Warfare 2 this idiot is playing

I'm of course playing it on my $500 PC, because this game, like most other good games, is not directly available on a Mac that costs 2 to 3 times as much.

This $500 PC by the way is all made of 3rd party parts I purchased then assembled together. When I wanted to pick a processor I had thousands of choices, same for the motherboard and video card. Can you do that with your mac?

[Scout]

50. i have a life. i don't play computer games. n/t

[no limit]

51. name me one thing your mac can do that my PC (which is a 1/3rd cheaper) can't

I can give you a huge list of everything my pc can do that your mac can't. Playing games being one of them.

By the way, a guy on an internet message board about politics telling me I have no life because I play computer games is a bit ironic.

[no limit]

7. I never had good luck with spybot, I recommend malwarebytes

I fix virus infections on pretty much a daily basis. The simple scanner that has always worked best for me is http://www.malware-bytes.org. Far more efficient than any other spyware program I've used, including Adaware and Spybot.

Once you eliminated the infections with malware-bytes avira is a great free anti-virus program. From everything I have seen it is far more effective than AVG and even the expensive security suites such as norton.

[Fly by night]

10. Great advice. I will visit those sites this evening.

Never can be too careful with Rethug creepy-crawlies these days.

[WhollyHeretic]

13. I switched over to using malwarebytes last year

I work in IT and malwarebytes often finds and removes things other programs can't. Superantispyware is another good one.

[no limit]

14. Superantispyware is also great

I just always hated the name, sounds like some crappy program that was written by a 10 year old.

[WhollyHeretic]

16. The name has always bugged me

The first time I heard the name I thought it was scareware.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

28. It is good, I work from home for a company and they recommend it

they encourage their employees to use SuperAntiSpyware.

Its a corporation with a few thousand at home agents.

I was already using SAS anyway though.

[inna]

49. Thank you!

I can't believe you were called names in this thread btw! (How old are these people, 13, or what??? :P )

[no limit]

55. You're welcome. And this wouldn't be an internet message board without some name calling

:toast:

[ecstatic]

11. Thanks. I need to download it for my new computer nt

[BennyD]

12. Thanks a lot! I use spybot regularly but didn't know that little trick. : ) n/t

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. Thanks - am trying your suggestion right now. And thanks to others for their other spyremove prgms.

Question - can/should you have more than one on your machine? Can they conflict with each other?

[no limit]

17. Spybot and malwarebytes dont run in the background so you can have both

I really dont see a reason to though, malwarebytes will protect you a lot better than spybot can and I haven't heard of any infections spybot can clean that malwarebytes can't. I have seen many infections spybot wasn't able to clean that malwarebytes was able to clean (or at the least detect).

[NRaleighLiberal]

19. Great thanks. My computer is pretty good - found only two items

in the hkey files. Feel pretty lucky! (I ran both just to see).

[SlowDownFast]

18. A-Squared is much better.

Rated #1 in malware/spyware detection and it's free.

Review:
http://www.pcsecuritylabs.net/news.php?readmore=10

A-Squared:
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

[DainBramaged]

24. Yup, but no one will listen. Creatures of habit

A2, Malwarebytes, XoftspyXE, the three best, Super anti-spyware free and good too. One product not enough.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

29. I didn't have good luck with that one

my computer ran rough so I uninstalled it.

It might work great for most people.

[Catshrink]

20. I used to use Spybot all the time

they I got McAfee with Cox Cable and for some reason stopped using Spybot. I'm getting the message from you and others that I should still do Spybot, right?

[ddeclue]

21. I switched to advanced view but all the searches were already on.

Perhaps you accidentally shut them off?

[Fly by night]

35. Don't think so. I've never changed the "mode" on Spybot since I first installed it.

But its spyware detection behavior definitely changed in the past month or so. Seems to be better, but I will keep checking from now on and will likely also install one of the other detection programs listed in this thread.

Thanks to all for your good advice. If Tom Paine were alive today, he would likely say:

"The price of freedom (and a bug-free computer) is eternal vigilance."

[immoderate]

23. I'm running the scan now.

I've noticed that Spybot seemed to be slacking off lately. I'm not sure that these setting changed anything. I'll let you know.

--imm

[D23MIURG23]

25. Thanks for the info. K&R

[wroberts189]

26. Try this: http://www.malwarebytes.org and Avira. Download.com nt

[JDPriestly]

27. How can you tell what your compuer is sending and receiving?

[Fly by night]

34. When I click on the lower-right corner icon that indicates I'm connected to the internets, ...

... it shows the send/receive activity (in terms of bytes) for that episode of connection to the 'net. I use Bellsouth as my ISP and still have dial-up service only (one of the few disadvantages of living at the end of the world). I don't know if all ISPs provide that info.

[johnaries]

30. I used to use both SpyBot and AdAware, because they seemed

to find different "critters". When I switched from Trend Micro PC-cillian to Kaspersky, I found I no longer needed either. AdAware still finds some things that Kaspersky "seems" to have missed, but they are harmless cookies that I sometimes want to keep.

BTW, as a fellow Tennessean I want to thank you again for all your hard work and your successes on the "black box voting" issue. :patriot:

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

This week is our fourth quarter 2009 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
a completely independent website. We depend on donations from our members
to cover our costs. Please take a moment to donate! Thank you!

[jimlup]

36. Er eh ... just get a MAC!

[Fly by night]

40. Er eh, I have a flat tire on my truck. Should I buy a new one?

Truck that is.

That's why my OP says "IF you use Spybot...". I know that Macs are less buggy than PCs. However, I've preferred PCs to the few MACs I've worked on. (I'm just old school, I guess.)

[jimlup]

42. If your truck was inferrior in its engineering then yeah

You should get a new one.

Just say'in

[Trekologer]

53. You used the wrong capitalisation

MAC = media access control (the identifier of a networking adapter)

Mac = Macintosh computer.

[jbnow]

38. Were the 105 new finds red entries or green?

I did as you suggested and have many new entries but none are spyware (red entries)
They are all usage tracks (green) and I don't quite get it...

S I wondered what kind of entries you "fixed" thateased your problems

[Fly by night]

39. I'm not sure, since they are erased now.

But I will pay attention to that in the future.

In any event, after making the changes mentioned in the OP, Spybot found items that it had found in the past, but not for the past month. One curiuos thing: it showed problem entries (usage or otherwise) for programs like WinZip that I have on my computer but that I have not used for years.

Thanks for the info, though. I will look at the colors of what is found the next time I scan.

[NNN0LHI]

41. I tried Search & Destroy about a week ago and found the same thing

But my browser kept freezing and hanging up after I installed it.

I removed it and everything is all good now.

Don

[Quantess]

45. Thanks.

[catzies]

47. Oh my! I didn't know that before. Thanks! n/t

[Blue_Tires]

48. ttt

[jasi2006]

52. Thanks. Is McAfee not enough?

What about Norton? will I have to purchase Spybot?

[Blue_Tires]

54. i have had similar thoughts

when idle, my computer seems to be loudly churning away at some laborious task even though i'm not near it...FWIW i run adaware, crapcleaner and avast...nothing found