Need some security advise - MSN Spyware etc

[celliott]

For the third time I went on my sister's PC today to find it absolutly loaded with rogue processes and trojans which were causing me to ping upto 500 ok uk game servers.

This has happened twice before and its all coming from the stupid MSN smiley sites even though she insists she has not been on any. MSN Plus for example is apparently free of spyware now, well it added about 90 entries to windows firewall allowing numerous ports to accept traffic.

Im sure some of you must have younger kids etc who has the simular problem. They fall for any extra they can get onto MSN for free and trash their PC in the process. What would you reccomend I install to try and stop this from happening.

Previously was a clean XP install with Windows Firewall enabled, NOD32 and Google toolbar to block the nasty popups.

Thanks a lot.

Chris

 

[Cybermyk]

The only thing I've really done with my daughters MSN is set the AV to scan any files she gets from mates. I do use a hardware and software firewall too though.

BTW if anyone is using AVG Free the way to do it is:

Tools>Options>File Transfer, paste "C:\Program Files\Grisoft\AVG Free\avgw.exe" /SE %1 into the 'scan for viruses using' field after ticking the box

 

[1337z0r]

My mate always had this problem. Around march i installed xp on his pc and all was fine. Installed zone alarm firewall and av and msn ect. Tokk around a minute to boot up. Not it takes about 5 when ever i turn on his PC . Random stuff like yahoo toolbar msn plus ect. Oh well... .

 

[Energize]

Lol I've seen this happen so many times before, go for maximum lockdown, install spybot and adaware and set them to automatically check for spyware, download peerguardian 2, and then block all inbound and outbound ports on the router except the ones used for http/ftp and msn. Then make sure she is using a normal user account and not one with admin rights. Maybe throw in a powerful firewall just to monitor the traffic on the http port. Make sure she is using a more secure browser like firefox and not internet explorer 6 which practically invites spyware in.

 

[Craig321]

For the third time I went on my sister's PC today to find it absolutly loaded with rogue processes and trojans which were causing me to ping upto 500 ok uk game servers.

This has happened twice before and its all coming from the stupid MSN smiley sites even though she insists she has not been on any. MSN Plus for example is apparently free of spyware now, well it added about 90 entries to windows firewall allowing numerous ports to accept traffic.

Im sure some of you must have younger kids etc who has the simular problem. They fall for any extra they can get onto MSN for free and trash their PC in the process. What would you reccomend I install to try and stop this from happening.

Previously was a clean XP install with Windows Firewall enabled, NOD32 and Google toolbar to block the nasty popups.

Thanks a lot.

Chris

MSN Plus does add some crap if you agree to install their sponsors... but if you untick that then it's perfectly fine.

 

[paulhuk2]

The first thing to help lock them down is do not, under any circumstances, let them run an admin account! Give them there own limited user account, it doesn't even need a password, just get them used to clicking on their own name on the login screen when you first boot into Windows.

Then as suggested; install an antivirus (set it to update and scan automatically), firewall (don't rely on the inbuilt one in XP, use something like ZoneAlarm), spyware blocker, secure browser and set Windows Update to automatic.

The more you can do to secure the system from the off, hopefully the less work you'll have in the future fixing virus/spyware infestations. The more things you can set to stay up-to-date automatically the better, as the average user isn't going to take the time to update things themselves.