On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:33:24 -0000, Colin Wilson wrote:

In that case, your security was seriously lacking :-p
I don't think so - SPybot *found* some extraordinary things. That's security in
action :-)

Not quite - ideally they shouldn't have been able to get onto his
system in the first place.

This example is not security in action, it's security after the fact.

Simple steps might have reduced the potential damage that may have
been caused, such as:

1) SpywareBlaster - blocks known activex exploits
2) Firefox - far less prone to being hacked than IE in real life
3) Spybot S&D (properly configured) - hosts file & immunize

(immunize on Spybot S&D is similar to the protection offered by
SpywareBlaster, but it does no harm having both on the system in case
one catches something the other doesn't)

And don't forget the MVPS HOSTS file, which short-circuits a great many
tracking cookies by redirecting name resolution for the host sites (e.g.
doubleclick) to the loopback adapter (127.0.0.1).
As a result, where the adverts themselves are served by these tracking
sites, they won't be displayed on client commercial web sites, so there
will be empty space where they would otherwise be displayed.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

There are a couple of utilities to be found down the page, that assist with
maintaing the HOSTS file. I use "HOSTS File Manager" that can be found
he http://dundats.mvps.org/Software/Index.htm

FYI, the HOSTS file lives in the drive:\windir\system32\drivers\etc
folder (on my system, that's C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc).