Archive for March, 2011

The Difference of Adware, Spyware and Anti-virus

Adware, spyware and computer virus share some similarities, one of which is that all three are major nuisances for computer users. Let’s differentiate the three.

Spyware is software that does not intentionally harm your computer. What they do is that they create pathways wherein someone else aside from the computer owner can communicate with the computer. Normally spywares record the various types of web sites you visit which are later used by web advertisers to allow them to send you unwanted emails and pop-ups.

This is why spyware are usually frowned upon and greatly avoided. They are more intrusive than adware. Spyware have their own separate executable programs which allow them to record your keystrokes, scan files on your hard disks and look at other applications that you use including but not limited to chat programs, cookies and Web browser settings.

The spyware then will send the information that it had gathered to the spyware author. The agent will then use this information for advertising and marketing purposes. They even sell the information to advertisers and other parties.

Adware, on the other hand, are more legitimate form of freeware. Similar to spyware, adwares are advertising materials which are packaged into a software or program and are installed automatically once that particular program or software is added into the computer system. Some forms of adware, on the other hand, download advertising contents as a particular application is being utilized. It is quite unfortunate that most of the adware programs take the form of spywares that is they track and report user information to program authors.

Some signs of spyware infections include pop-up ads that seem to be not related to the site you are viewing. More often than not, spyware pop-ups are advertisements about adult contents. Also if you notice your computer slowing down, there’s a big chance that spywares and its other components have found their way in your operating system. When the Windows desktop also takes a longer time to load, its best to scan your computer for possible spyware infections.

Meanwhile, viruses are destructive form of software. They were purely designed and created for one purpose alone: to wreck havoc to your computer. They destroy whatever they come in contact to and will initiate self replication and infect as many components of the computer’s operating system or network as possible.

Nowadays, a lot of anti-virus software also provides spyware and adware scanning and removal utilities. Some programs, however, are focused on located and deleting or destroying spyware and adware programs. Whether is an anti-virus software or a anti-spyware dedicated scanner, they both search your computer and identify any spyware and virus installed on your system.

They then remove it as well as their components located in the system registry among other places in your computer. It is therefore, good to regularly update your virus or spyware scanner to ensure that your computer is protected from the thousands of spyware and viruses in the internet. Never be fooled from ads that claim that their products only contain adware.

These adware maybe spyware in disguised and are just waiting to be deployed for them to gather your information. Learn to setup firewall systems and always block pop-up blockers to minimize computer infection and ensure the security of all your computer files. For Spyware Removers visit 1spywareremovers.com

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Vundo Virus

A Vundo Virus infection

Vundo Virus has been around for a long time now Vundo Virus is typically caused either by opening an e-mail attachment carrying the trojan, or through a variety of browser exploits, including vulnerabilities in popular browser plug-ins, such as Java. Many of the popups advertise fraudulent programs such as AntiSpywareMaster, WinFixer, AntiVirus 2009.

There are two main components to Virtumonde.dll which are Browser Helper Objects and Class ID. Each of these components is in the Windows Registry under HKEY LOCAL MACHINE, and the file names are dynamic. It attaches to the system using bogus Browser Helper Objects and DLL files attached to winlogon.exe and explorer.exe and more recently lsass.exe.

Vundo virus

inserts registry entries to suppress Windows warnings about the disabling of firewall, antivirus, and the Automatic Updates service, disables the Automatic Updates service and quickly re-disables it if manually re-enabled, and Vundo Virus attacks Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, HijackThis, and several other malware removal tools. Vundo Virus frequently hides itself from Vundofix & Combofix. Rather than pushing fake antivirus products, the new “ad” popups for the drive-by download attacks are copies of ads by major corporations, faked so that simply closing them allows the drive-by download exploit to insert the payload into the user’s computer. (Fortunately, this is hindered, if not prevented altogether by Vista’s User Account Control feature.) Its filenames are categorized by having the “hidden” flag set and being .dll files with 8-character randomly arranged names alternating consonants and vowels.

Symptoms of Vundo Virus

Since there are many different varieties of Vundo virus trojans, symptoms of Vundo Virus vary widely, ranging from the relatively benign to the severe. Almost all varieties of Vundo Virus feature some sort of pop-up advertising as well as rooting themselves to make them difficult to delete.

Computers infected exhibit some or all of the following symptoms:

* Vundo Virus will cause the infected web browser to pop up advertisements, many of which claim a need for software to fix system “deterioration”.

* The desktop background may be changed to the image of an installation window saying there is adware on the computer.

* The screensaver may be changed to the Blue Screen of Death.

* In the Display Properties Control Panel, the background and screensaver tabs are missing because their “Hide” values in the Registry were changed to 1.

* Both the background and screensaver are in the System32 folder, however the screensaver cannot be deleted.

* Windows Automatic Updates (and other web-based services) may also be disabled and it is not possible to turn them back on.

* Some firewalls or antivirus software may also be disabled by the virus leaving the system even more vulnerable. Especially, it disables Norton AntiVirus and in turn uses it to spread the infection. Norton will show prompts to enable phishing filter, all by itself. Upon pressing OK, it will try to connect to real-av.org and try to download more malware.

* Popular anti-malware programs may be deleted or immediately closed upon loading.

* Web access may also be negatively affected. Vundo virus may cause many websites to be inaccessible.

* Google search links may be directed to rogue antispyware sites, which can be avoided by copy and pasting addresses

*

Vundo virus

may cause webpages to fail to load after sessions of browsing and present a blank page in the browser instead of the webpage. When this happens any programs may also fail to start and it may become impossible to use windows shutdown.

* The hard drive may start to be constantly accessed by the winlogon process, thus periodic freezes may be experienced.

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