Up to my neck in spyware...

Having spent the best part of a working day battling with a couple of computers infested with spyware its rather timely that I read today that Microsoft thinks they are going to do something about this insidious problem. Of course I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a solution from Redmond given the number of years ago that they told us they would be taking care of the Windows "security problem" and its only just now that they turn on the Windows firewall by default...

The worst part of today's battle with spyware was that ultimately I failed. I managed to beat down the infestation on one system and get it upgraded all the way to service pack two. Yes I do recommend SP2 although fortunately this person had a firewall and wireless network that was thankfully already blocking them from the worst the world could throw at them, and locking down their WiFi securely enough to keep casual interlopers out.

However the other system seemed to have a very recalcitrant spyware strain or two residing on it that no amount of manual tweaking or use of three different spyware removal tools would remove. I was considerably disappointed that neither Ad-Aware, Spybot or Norton AV would remove them. Indeed while Norton proved the most successful at locating spyware related files it was the least successful at removing them, 90% of the time it would fail to delete files that other tools would. I've previously been a booster of Ad-Aware but today it didn't do well at all. Spybot Search and Destroy did better on the whole but none of these could seem to get rid of an odious infestation named TIBS.

Given the success that Spyware seems to enjoy, how ineffective its detection and removal tools are, and how laughably vunerable Windows and Explorer are to them I'm given to wonder if perhaps half of them are not originating from the FBI, NSA and CIA. After all its probably a great way to keep tabs on the people of the United States. So no wonder Microsoft is dragging its heels to fix this problem...

After firewalls and spyware problems are "fixed", I wonder what the next glaringly obvious yet easily exploited desktop OS flaw will be?