Microsoft Apologizes for Serving Malware

dark_15 writes "Microsoft has apologized for serving malware via its websites and Windows Live Messenger software. APC reader Jackie Murphy reported the problem: 'With Microsoft launching Vista along with their Defender software to protect users from viruses and spyware, it seems therefore to be an oxymoron that they have started to putting paid changing banner advertisements for malware, on the popular MSN groups servers.'"

Re:Motive?

[Brian Gordon]

Which is free to download [microsoft.com] by the way.

Re:Please choose one

[Damastus the WizLiz]

Its not even an oxymoron. An oxymoron is two words put together with opposet meanings, like: Dodge Ram, Bitter Sweet, or Windows Stability. The correct term here would be hypocricy.

Re:Motive?

[govtpiggy]

Windows Defender is supported by XP and is a free download. You don't need to buy Vista to get or use it.

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[Sefert]

The corporate edition of Symantec AV is nice and quiet. I stay away from any 'security packages' type of products because they generally include total crap that is just alarmist and irritating. I'd take a hot poker in the hand before I'd have Norton Internet Security on my system. McAfee's is just as bad (in fact, often worse, as some web browsing problems still exist even when the a/v and firewall are off).

I'm also a big fan of Kaspersky antivirus. It seems to only call your attention to something when it really needs it, and has intelligent things to say, rather than seeming to act like it's trying to justify being there. Stick to just A/V (that picks up spyware like Kaspersky does) and a little hardware firewall - it'll generally do the trick very nicely.

Re:Motive?

[petermgreen]

and btw i've heared it works on 2K if you edit the installer file to make it let you.

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[PitaBred]

I just had to remove that Norton shit from my aunt's computer because it would take 30-60 seconds to scan any MS Office document that was opened, when it was opened. Doesn't matter if it just scanned it, that it was on the local machine, and it didn't seem to even try to cache definitions in memory or anything. It just got the Word window border open, and "Scanning for viruses..." in the status bar for the next minute. I replaced it with the free version of AVG, and it started behaving like the brand new computer it was.

For pretty decent security, I just recommend Firefox, AVG, and a bit of education on safe browsing habits, and which software is more likely to be safe to download/install, etc.

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[Alari]

If anyone has any recommendations on a well-behaved, friendly security program for Windows XP that isn't in your face all the time, I'd love to hear it.

AVG anti-virus is great. http://free.grisoft.com/ [grisoft.com]

It's free, it works, and it doesn't pop up stupid stuff all the time. Unless you have a virus, the only pop-up you'll see is the AVG auto-updater once a day, which automatically goes away after 30 seconds once it's finished updating AVG (or if you click the OK button.)

For a firewall, you can use the windows firewall, it works fine. It'll pop up occasionally to ask about this or that program, but it's not bothersome.

For ad-ware or malware, use Ad-aware ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ [lavasoftusa.com] ) and Spybot ( http://www.safer-networking.org/ [safer-networking.org] ) Don't use Spybot's Teatimer thing though, it's horribly annoying and the dialog box is mis-configured so that the buttons are difficult to read. These are manual scanners, you have to run them yourself to check for spyware.

windows defender is supposed to be okay, though I don't use it so I can't comment too much, just that I've heard it's fairly annoying, like Spybot's Teatimer.

That should cover you pretty well security-wise. This doesn't mean you can freely download things like "buckets'o'pr0n.exe" and run them without thinking about it, just that your system will be reasonably protected from the average sort of junk software or websites that you may encounter.

Most of the spyware and malware can be stopped in the first place by using a browser other than ie. There have been a lot of security reports about Firefox, but it's still pretty good. So is Opera. Both are free.

Re:SystemDoctor 2006??

[0232793]

You would be surprised. I have cleaned this and variants off PCs recently. Thankfully Wikipedia comes to the rescue - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFixer [wikipedia.org]

Re:THANKS for the helpful replies.

[thejynxed]

It doesn't play nice with uninstallation at all.

Even after uninstalling, you need to download and use a special cleaning tool to get rid of all of the files and registry entries that piece of crap software leaves behind.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf /docid/2005033108162039/ [symantec.com] (Skip all of the instructions for reinstallation of Norton, just run the tool.)

Alternatively, get it here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Norton_Removal_Tool_SymN RT_d4749.html [majorgeeks.com]

Uninstalling Norton has been known to hose systems, so be careful (make backups, etc) before attempting to uninstall. And make sure you run the tool :)

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[StikyPad]

I've found Kaspersky to be a resource hog. My personal favorite is NOD32 [eset.com]. The interface takes some getting used to, but it works well, has all the features you'd expect without trying to sell you on a firewall/"internet security" suite. It scores among the best in hit % (typically 2nd, sometimest 1st), and it was the fastest scanner in several tests. They also have "bulk" discounts, which is great if you're running more than one system.

Recent review here [biosmagazine.co.uk] and when searching for reviews just now (never seen a bad one), I just discovered it's user rating [cnet.com] blows away that of Kaspersky [cnet.com].. rightly so, IMHO. This is a nerd's AV if ever there was one.

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[gardyloo]

I would second the recommendation of Kaspersky (if you want to pay for an all-in-one system scanner and software firewall). If you want to go for the free stuff, Avast and AVG have both proven to be fine for me, along with a ZoneAlarm or Comodo firewall.

      The other poster in this thread level said that Kaspersky was a resource hog. I've never found that (except that big downloads on broadband can be made slower by Kaspersky doing its scanning during the download). Plus, its definitions are updated every couple of hours.

          I used to use Panda as an all-in-one program, and it worked fine, but it ate up far too much of my RAM.

Re:Symantec on SystemDoctor: Pot, meet kettle...

[sporkme]

Symantec AV often lags behind in protection and definitions. The worst recent example that comes to mind is the spread of hacktool.rootkit (aka about a million things), which was implemented in countless malware releases. Symantec was AFAIK the only mainstream antivirus program that missed detecting it as it was installed. My flavors of choice are:
AVG Free antivirus [grisoft.com]
LavaSoft Adaware [lavasoftusa.com]
and Spybot Search and Destroy [safer-networking.org].

Very little can get by this trifecta. When I suspect that a machine has received an infection that these three can't remove, I research the individual piece of malware on sites like CastleCops or I just Google it by process name.

I also keep archives of RootKitRevealer [microsoft.com], peperfix.exe [bleepingcomputer.com] and HijackThis [majorgeeks.com].