Watch out for Spyware

In the past few months I have found so many clients machines to infected with spyware and other viruses. In the old days spyware was fairly easy to remove, a program such as Adaware usually sorted it. However the latest variants such as Smitfruad and Virtumonde/Vondu are getting much harder to shift. These are very nasty they bolt into your Windows operating system, you may find your desktop has been hijacked with lots of fake viruses messages.

I will help people to recognise that they have spyware but more importantly never get it in the first place.

How to recognise the symptoms:-

• Your computer will probably start to run slower although there are many causes of this.


• You might see some fake viruses or a new message appearing every time you boot your computer up informing you have lots of viruses and you need to pay to purchase the full software – this is basically a fraud scam.


• You get unexplained re-direct, for example you might type in google into the address bar but the page is then redirect to a pornography site.

The above are just some symptoms there best way to sure is to run a program as such Spybot Search and Destroy and carry out a full scan in safe mode.

How to avoid spyware

Most people get spyware because they lack the knowledge to avoid it. Never click on any popups that claim to speed up your computer or tune it while you’re on the internet. Make sure you update your Java client and that your browser is up to date. I personally recommend that you use Firefox.

Make sure you have a decent anti virus package, I find many people that get spyware have Norton installed and think they are protected these packages should at least scan your outlook email messages and warn you if they contain viruses. At the very least run a virus scan once a week. I recommend AVG Free Edition if you’re not running a business, it is free and actually more effective than Norton at removing and detecting viruses.

Avoid using peer to peer programs such as Limewire, most the content you find on these are illegal due to copyright reasons and many of things you download contain viruses and spyware.

Make sure your have a hardware firewall, most wireless routers have these built in but if you’re still using a modem without a router function at the very least install Zone Alarm firewall.

Watch the cowboys

I am just about to do my 700th of job being self employed in the IT Support industry. The job is a simple wireless card installation. However one of the things that has struck me during almost three years of doing this job is how many jobs I have to do because of other peoples mistakes.

It seems that some computer shops and mobile ‘PC Engineers’ seem to think that the answer to fixing any PC problem is to format it. In some cases if the windows operating system so badly corrupt due to viruses etc this is best option but in my opinion most of the time it is not.

I wish computer shops would stop charging people for formatting their PC as an answer to all cures, when the fault is hardware related all this will do is hide the fault for a few days.

So next time a computer shop says they have to format your computer (I.e re-install windows) ask them why. I myself format computers a lot as when viruses and spyware infections get so bad it is often the best solution but I always check to ensure the problem is not hardware related first.

Some tips to choosing a good IT support engineer :-

• Make sure they are local, if is no good somebody that lives 50 miles away to come out and fix your problem, they probably won’t want to come back if there are problems!


• Ask about how long they have been in business and what qualifications they have but check their website first as it may well answer these questions.


• Don’t antagonise them, ask them too many questions and they may put the phone down.


• Don’t ask them to bring the price down, if you are not happy with the prices they charge so else where, they are plenty of cowboys who will do the job cheaper.


• Make sure they have an address on their advertising material and also check they have a landline, if they have a mobile and no address there will be no come back if they destroy all your data or your best china!


• Don’t expect exact quotes on the phone, until they have seen the computer and diagnose the problem(s) it is impossible to give an exact quote. I once made the mistake of doing this and it meant I ended up making £30 on a six hour job.

I hope this post was useful and gives you a little bit of an insight into the mind of a computer engineer. There will be a lot more of this to come.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. My name is Ian Robertson and I have ran an IT support company called M21 Technology Services in the past two and a half years. In this blog I hope to share my thoughts of the industry and the future.