Malware: Fear It
May 8th, 2004
I read a recent study claiming that the costs of malware in the first quarter of 2004 have already exceeded the entire year of 2003. Malware hasn’t made it into Webster’s just yet, but it won’t take long. Malware is basically the category of malicious software: worms, viruses, spyware, adware, etc. — it is software gone bad.
The rise of viruses and worms has been well documented. Few computer users have been immune to the flood of these malicious bits of code, especially considering their rise in popularity and severity. Today’s viruses aren’t semi-funny hoaxes, they are just plain nasty.
Festinate reactions to ActiveX pop-ups can have very dangerous consequences. Malware authors know most users instinctively press the “Install” button by force of habit, and exploit that tendency to get their malware on to your machine. This particular subset of malware is typically called adware or spyware. This stuff is more annoying than destructive, but it can change your homepage, monitor your surfing habits, serve up ads endlessly, and redirect you to sites that you don’t want to go to.
So, how do you battle malware in your home or business? Here are a few tools that will help you get rid of malware on your machine. The first time you use these tools, you will be amazed at how much of this garbage has crept onto your computer.
Ad-aware Plus has a freeware version which will take care of just about everything.
Spybot – Search & Destroy is my personal favorite, but it is almost too thorough — just make sure not to remove any legitimate tools or you will have to reinstall them.