fans of Internet Explorer, need to be on guard for surreptitious spyware
installations. ... A spyware or adware detection and removal program is also
essential.
Spybot Search and Destroy 1.3 *Available for PC Only* Kimberly Pendell School of Information, University of Texas at Austin Spring 2005
Keep your computer healthy and your information private by protecting it from threats with Spybot Search and Destroy. And Spybot is free to download and easy to use! Why Use Spybot? If you use the Internet, your computer and your privacy are vulnerable. Many of the threats come from malicious viruses and black hat hackers, but commercial entities such as online stores may also threaten your privacy and slow down your computer by installing spyware on your hard drive. Windows users, especially fans of Internet Explorer, need to be on guard for surreptitious spyware installations. Most people are familiar with the importance of using anti-virus protection and a firewall; unfortunately, these protective measures do not catch everything. A spyware or adware detection and removal program is also essential. More about Spyware *Spyware consists of computer software that gathers and reports information about a computer user without the user's knowledge or consent. More broadly, the term spyware can refer to a wide range of related malware products which fall outside the strict definition of spyware. These products perform many different functions, including the delivery of unrequested advertising (pop-up ads in particular), harvesting private information, re-routing page requests to illegally claim commercial site referral fees, and installing stealth phone dialers. A typical piece of spyware installs itself in such a way that it starts up every time the computer starts up (using CPU cycles and RAM, and reducing stability), and runs at all times, monitoring Internet usage and delivering targeted advertising to the affected system… The consequences of a moderate to severe spyware infection (privacy issues aside) generally include a substantial loss of system performance (over 50% in extreme cases), and major stability issues (crashes and hangs).* * “Spyware” (2004). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from the World Wide Web, January 11, 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware.
Download and Install Spybot 1.3 Spybot is available from UT BevoWare (www.utexas.edu/its/bevoware). Because it is a freeware program, Spybot Search and Destroy is also available for download from multiple sources on the World Wide Web. The Windows operating systems support Spybot Search and Destroy (some functions of Spybot may require administrator rights in Windows NT and Windows 2000). Spybot cannot be used with Mac or Unix/Linux systems. Once you have downloaded Spybot to your hard drive, open the program to begin the set up process. Spybot’s Setup Wizard will guide you through the license agreement, desktop icon preference, etc.
Running a Spybot Scan The Spybot Search and Destroy interface is easy to use and the tools are well explained. You can find additional help, including a tutorial within the Help menu. This tutorial will address present use of the default mode of Spybot; an advanced mode is also available for use if you wish.
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This is the main page of Spybot; from here you can check for problems and fix selected problems.
The Recovery page keeps backups of problems Spybot fixed. You may wish to reinstall certain items if their removal was problematic.
Spybot provides an “immunization” option to prevent spyware attacks. The “browser helper” blocks unwanted downloads through Internet Explorer.
Download and install the latest protection updates from Spybot for the most effective defense against Spyware.
After running a scan, you will be presented with a list of spyware found on you computer. By highlighting an entry and clicking on the arrowed bar to the far right, you can find more information about the detected spyware.
After selecting items for removal, click “Fix selected problems.”* Spybot will keep a backup of all removed spyware that may be found on the Recovery page. From here, you may choose to permanently purge items or recover them. You might find it useful to recover certain items if their removal has affected the desired functionality of an application; some Internet applications may work more efficiently when cookies are installed. It is good idea to run Spybot once a week. Depending on the level of your Web surfing, you might want to perform scans more or less frequently.
*You might find that an item called “DSO-Exploit” will return each time you run Spybot, even if you fixed and purged it. This is a common occurrence as DSO-Exploit is a security gap in Internet Explorer, Outlook and Outlook Express. Microsoft closed this gap with security updates. Please be sure that you have all the current Windows updates and patches installed. With the updates and patches, this security gap will not be a threat to your computer, even though Spybot will still detect it. A future program update of Spybot will fix this bug.
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