Matt_PNEtownend

IMO, malware is putting the entire existence of the net at risk. For example, I have had my pc for about nine months, although like to do a reformat every six-ish months to keep it ticking over nicely. About a week ago, I ran my usual scans, after I noticed a bit of strange behaviour - nothing detected by NIS, Adaware, or Spybot. I also had SpywareBlaster running. I looked at my HJT log - possibly a couple of strange entries, but in all likelihood not - certainly nothing jumping out at me. I then downloaded Spycatcher Express, which found over 100 infections, despite nothing being found by other programmes. I was doubtful that all of these apparently malicious traces were actually malware, but to be on the safe side, I decided to use the function on my PC which allows complete over-writing of the main partition on my hard disk by a smaller, pre-instaled partition, provided by Dell, to restore my PC to an "as new" configuration (minus all my programmes, documents, files etc). I just hope that this eradicates the malware as well!

My point is this - it seems that, however many security apps you have, and however safe you try to be online, you just can't stop eventual infection. There seems to be very little legal recourse against this (although I do remember a test case where a man successfully sued for theft as malware used extra electricity in his processor), and if you consider the number of computers infected, the size of botnets, and the increased amount of net traffic caused by all this, it seems like no-one is safe from, at best snooping, and at worst identity theft and possible theft of other information, possibly involving money.

O the whole, then, the net appears to be so full of this kind of crap that it is only suitable for use by professionals, or those who stick to a bare minimum number of sites. Such a shame.

Any comments?

geek73

I agree with most of what you say...

Most of the malware now is almost drive-by.. But there is still some that is installed with programs that people use.. I am in a position to see both sides as I had to take business law and advertisement for my B.S.. I still think though that even if you click "no do not install this software" is a viable option as it still will as yahoo messenger does this when I want my homepage set to where I have it and do not want the tool bar so I have to go and uninstall it even though I click "NO"

As you said sticking to a few sites is really not an option nowadays (even though I do its not for everyone.)
Coders are getting smarter and starting younger, so companies have to come up with more pacthes to patch this etc..
But like I said I agree with what you say. Common sense goes a long way..

Martingale00

Yeah I agree with you but that's just how it is unfortunately. Credit card number theft is my primary concern as it's happened to me in the past although I'm not 100% certain it happened online. I consider that my primary concern followed by full blown identity theft. I wont type my social security number into the computer at anytime. Of course your name, address, phone number, ect., is impossible to avoid if you make online purchases. Beyond that I hope a virus doesn't kill my rig. I don't care about snooping because other then credit card numbers there's nothing a snooper will be interested in seeing because there's just video games and pictures of people on this thing. I think the best way to not get stolen from is to not shop online. If you don't shop online you can tailor your internet habits to never include typing any personal information of any kind into your computer.