Re: Advice please-browser hijacker..

From: Moe Trin (ibuprofin_at_painkiller.example.tld)
Date: 01/17/05 

Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:21:56 -0600

In article <lJidnQXjDNfKC3fcRVn-oQ@a5.com>, OldCoyote wrote:

>We had a similar problem with CoolWebSearch. It was my first experience
>with this type of product. It was on a Windows XP computer and the initial
>tech had tried for two days to remove it using AdAdware and SpyBot S&D.
>Both products removed it but it came back the next boot.
>
>I found the tech had omitted turning off System Restore so I did that first
>thing. I ran the utilities and also got a clean machine until reboot.

The only really safe method is to wipe the disk, and reinstall from either
clean backups or original media (and then patch up to date). This way, you
are not dependent on the anti-spyware/trojan/virus companies being up to
date on the latest minor variation of the spyware/trojan/virus de heure.
A better mechanism is to not get infected/0wn3d in the first place, but
people will click 'OK' on the most bizarre messages because they don't
understand that technical stuff.

The problem with this is that nearly all home users (and to many business
users) don't have backups, and couldn't find the original media if their
life depended on it (never mind knowing how to get their "working"
configurations back). And they'd loose all of their data. Of course,
they're depending on the fact that the computers don't fail as often
as then did in the 1980s, because the data loss is going to be just as
bad if the computer lets the magic smoke escape as it is with some nice
trojan that erases their hard disk, but whatever.

By the way, I hope that tech isn't doing maintenance for you any more.
The money wasted in his time ALONE would have paid for (for example) a
cheap tape drive and a case of tapes, or a CD Writer and a heck of a lot
of blanks. Then there's the wasted time of the users...

        Old guy

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