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June 16, 2004
A New Evil
So there I am happily surfing along. I do a Google search and notice that the taskbar redirects to lunasearch.com, then back to google. Odd, maybe google has another server to even the flow of things, but I decide to check it out anyhow. I open a new browser and Google isn't my homepage any longer.....
I'd been Hijacked.
Now, in addition to putting up with Spam, advertisers have found a whole new way to annoy. Spyware is becoming well known, but now instead of going away, it's changing tactics and coming on stronger.
I ran the antivirus and nothing came up other than a few cookies that it said were adware. I then ran AdAware and a number of things came up. Considering I don't download much I was a little surprised at the number of things, but it had been a while since ran AdAware so I wasn't that surprised.
Everything seemed back to normal, lunasearch was now gone. Then I looked in my Add/Remove programs and found several items that shouldn't be there. Cleared those out as well and deleted their directories. Again, seemed clear, but despite the GoogleBar pop-up blocker, I was still getting a number of pop-ups.
After scanning the web, I found a few new tools to help in my battle. HiJackThis lists all the add-ins to your browser and your startups and allows you to remove them (and undo if you find you've made a mistake)...the problem is knowing what it all means, but there are plenty of sites that can help you with that. The other item that I found was Spybot - Search & Destroy. After I had run AdAware, Spybot S&D found 98 more things that needed to be removed. It also has the ability to block some items (or warn you) that are downloaded when you read an ad.
Be on the lookout for more and more spyware, adware, and who knows what. The ad companies are getting smarter so you have to keep up on what can block the new things they come up with.
So that's how I spent a majority of my Monday off....
Posted by Jesse at June 16, 2004 11:15 PM