I was depressed to read this post from a Microsoft blogger who claims to be involved with security: Argh! Kids’ laptop riddled with spyware!
I downloaded the current beta version of MS’ new Anti-SpyWare tool yesterday and installed it on my kids’ laptop. When I ran the scan, I found something like 16 different types of SpyWare installed. The trigger was starting up IE on the machine and being greeted with something called the “Megasearch” tool bar!
I can say that the new Anti-SpyWare tool seems to do a really good job. Of course with SpyWare, you don’t know what you don’t know. There could be another dozen SpyWare packages installed on my system that the tool didn’t detect, but at least I know I got some. Oh well, what are you going to do?…
Jeebus, the last thing I want to hear from someone who works at Microsoft is this sort of defeatist attitude. Especially when they’re involved in security. What are you going to do? Back up the kid’s data. Wipe the hard disk and reinstall Windows and all programs. Set up safeguards to make sure no unwanted programs get installed again. Ban Kazaa and anything lke it. Give the kid a Limited user account.
Ed Bott 