What has been your spyware experience?

[aysiu]

In light of this thread (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=108756), I'm just curious what people's spyware experiences have been.

Please do not speak in theory about what spyware does or does not exist "somewhere out there" or what might "possibly" exist.

I'm not asking about your friend or your friend's best friend's mom's sister's boyfriend.

This poll is about you and your own personal experiences.

[psoleko]

Personally, I never had spyware on any of my machines. But I have been using Mozilla and Firefox (Firebird, Pheonix) for my main browser for ages. At work, I see and remove spyware on almost a daily basis. Alot of the newer spyware coming out is extremely adept at embedding itself deep in the system and is an absolute nightmare to try and remove.

[Rinzwind]

Well I dare to say I never had spyware on any of my machines. Both windows and ubuntu.

Under Windows I have always used Opera and/or FF with adblock and java restricted and I've never used software firewalls and/or virusscanners.

Once every year or every 2 years I do a spyware scan with spybot but it always turns up blank :)


The only time I ever was in trouble was when I inserted a diskette in my system with a virus on it (and I allready had doubts before I put it in....). But it was back in the win 98 days and during those days I used to format/reinstall automatically every month or so.

[ember]

Well - I once had spyware on a Windows 2000 machine where I installed something I don't remember and got Gator with it. Yet it did not last very long ;)

[Pablo_Escobar]

Win, Win, Win.
Free antivirus and firewall are a basic, but not good enough protection to keep spyware at bay.
With Linux I browse happy, freely without thinking about any kind of spyware, because I KNOW MY BOX IS SECURE ENOUGH. :)

[Lord Illidan]

Hehe, nice poll options..

On Windows I used to get bucketloads, though they stopped with Firefox and the triple combination of MS Antispyware, Ad-aware and Spybot. I remember running ad-aware on a friend's pc and capturing over 1000 pieces with ad-aware...

Now, on Kubuntu, nothing... sheer bliss.

[GeneralZod]

Back when I used IE, I managed to get some (although I had never heard the term before at that point), but after I switched browsers, I never got any again.

[Rumor]

I had a fairly clean box running WinXP. It took several steps to keep it that way, though.

Spybot Search & Destroy - (info (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html)) To do a weekly sweep & iummunize the system.
Ewido Security Suite - (info (http://www.ewido.net/en/)) To run in the systray and (theoretically) keep stuff from making itself to home on my system.
Process Guard - (info (http://www.diamondcs.com.au/processguard/)) Wonderful program. It keeps things from phoning home without your knowledge.


Despite all that stuff running in the background, the weekly sweep I would do on my computer always turned up some "problem" or other.

In the end, it seemed like I was devoting far too much of my limited system resources to "security" and was not all that secure despite my efforts. I don't go browsing off into dangerous territory, so far as I know, but I wanted to not have to devote so much time and effort into keeping my system "clean." That is just one of the reasons I jumped ship and joined those who are coming over to Linux seeking peace of mind.

[deNoobius]

I have had spyware only on my newer Windows machine--several hundred pieces at one point. Use ad-aware, AVG, and Zonealarm now, and I just don't go on line with that machine much anymore. Never had it either on OSX or (my rather new) Linux box (new linux, old box I mean).

[Qrk]

When I first got my (used) computer I had over 700 viri and spyware programs on it. Needless to say it didn't take me long to install linux.

But since being in Linux, I've found that even the commercial programs in Linux are less intrusive than in windows. For instance, Realplayer in windows pops up with advirtisments, offers music downloads and is really saturated with special offers.

Realplayer linux is very clean; its just like helix player with some more codecs.

[raublekick]

Back in my freshman year of college when I lived on campus, I had major virus/spyware issues in both Win98SE and XP Pro. This was before firefox and the campus network was infested.

Last year I did a fresh install of XP Pro and didn't put any spyware or AV software on it. I went over a year until I decided to install them, and they turned up nothing.

In linux, it's been no problem at all.

My opinion is that spyware is 99% the user's fault due to ignorance. It really isn't that difficult to know what not to click.

[afhp]

I may have gotten spyware, but I don't remember.

It's been too long since I last used a system on which spyware is a problem.

[angkor]

Never any for me :(

Since I hook up machines to the inet, I've been using Linux.

[eriqk]

I first ran into the spyware phenomenon when I started using Audiogalaxy many, many moons ago. Valuable lesson.
My windows boxes have all been infected from time to time, until I started using Firefox. My current windows machine has been clean since I installed it.

I look after some windows machines at the community center where I work, and keeping those clean is a nightmare. All of them run XP Home (don't ask), so I set user perissions to restricted for everyone except me. Cleaned up all the scumware magnets some of the teachers left behind (WinMX, Bearshare, and so on. You won't believe the amount of crap I found on these machines). Installed every update and security pack I could get. Installed Spyware S&D with TeaTimer. And so on.
They still get infected, two weaks ago S&D detected the dreaded CoolWebSearch scumware.

I suppose there may be some crap left behind (these machines were basically left unmaintained for a year and served as the playground for some of the teachers) and I think it would be wise to check for rootkits after the holidays.

Groet, Erik

[Lord Illidan]

Those who said that they recieved spyware under Ubuntu only, can they come forward and post their experiences?

[Iandefor]

I've only had spyware under Windows; my family, as of 5 years ago, was so computer-illiterate they'd install anything *shudders*. Then I installed Linux on the family computer, and spyware went out the door with Windows. Yet another reason to use Linux, in my opinion.

[lleb]

under windows once i learned about malware type applications and how to prevent and remove them i was able to reduce their numbers to a min.

before i learned i was loaded with them, before i found out about Opera i was loaded with them daily. thus I HATE IE...


pre Opera i would have between 200- 500 per day.
after Opera i would have between 20-50 a week.
after FF with adblock and noscript i would have 1 - 4 a month.

the power of open souce is evedent. there is no spyware for linux.

[Lord Illidan]

I've only had spyware under Windows; my family, as of 5 years ago, was so computer-illiterate they'd install anything *shudders*. Then I installed Linux on the family computer, and spyware went out the door with Windows. Yet another reason to use Linux, in my opinion.

My father used to like getting these programs to download mp3s. These were of dubious quality....hehe, trojans everywhere, spyware and the like.... Now, poof!!

[Danielle]

never had it. about the only thing i know about computers is windows security. i use Opera, Proxomitron, lots of patches like safexp, hardenit, secureit, wwdc.exe, etc, a sandbox and registry monitor running at ring 1, no java, turn off services - NetBios etc, Kerio and a hosts file in XP. with Ubuntu i have firestarter.

i scan Ubuntu from XP but how would i know i had spyware if i only used Ubuntu? is there a scanner?

[BWF89]

I use Windows XP as my only OS and I don't have a problem with spyware. I just have a few anti-malware programs and they keep everything running relitively smoothly.

[bonzodog]

damn..you know I've NEVER seen a piece of spyware. The very first thing I did in the brief time I had win XP pro, was remove IE, and install firefox, thunderbird, gaim, and xchat. I then put OpenOffice on it, and the only proprietry software i willingly installed were games. But I've run linux almost as a sole OS for 7 odd years, and the spyware thing appeared while I was running slackware as a sole OS. I just sat there and thought.."god, all those sad lusers....".

[Nimefurahi]

I'll call it "spyware", a rather ironic "spyware".

Less than one week ago my Ubuntu box became a proxy server by virtue of the fact that I had Tor and Privoxy installed to enable anonymous browsing. My box became a proxy server by my using the default scripting and configurations of the Tor and Privoxy packages. Go figure! Right out of the box! The darned thing wormed its way right through my firewall.

thread of ungoing saga. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=10825&page=4)

Needless to say, I killed Tor and Privoxy.

This was the first instance of a "spyware" that I am aware of in the 7 years that I've given up window$.

[Danielle]

I'll call it "spyware", a rather ironic "spyware".

Less than one week ago my Ubuntu box became a proxy server by virtue of the fact that I had Tor and Privoxy installed to enable anonymous browsing. My box became a proxy server by my using the default scripting and configurations of the Tor and Privoxy packages. Go figure! Right out of the box! The darned thing wormed its way right through my firewall.

thread of ungoing saga. (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=10825&page=4)

Needless to say, I killed Tor and Privoxy.

This was the first instance of a "spyware" that I am aware of in the 7 years that I've given up window$.
hi this is how to set up Tor, Privoxy and Firefox, it needs to be sockified, firefox can do it.
http://www.imperialviolet.org/deerpark.html

[matthew]

On Windows I used to get bucketloads, though they stopped with Firefox and the triple combination of MS Antispyware, Ad-aware and Spybot. I remember running ad-aware on a friend's pc and capturing over 1000 pieces with ad-aware...This was my exact experience and in fact, my initial motivation for leaving Windows. I just got tired of spending my time maintaining my computer rather than using my computer.

(slightly off topic) I stayed with Linux because it reminded me of how much fun I had as a kid in the 600 baud modem on a computer with 64K and learning to program days. Linux has motivated me to learn new programming languages and have fun making my equipment DO fun things instead of sitting around trying to PROTECT my equipment/os from harm.

[poofyhairguy]

My experiance is having to clean it up for everyone else. Where is that option?

I never had problems with it.

[raublekick]

My experiance is having to clean it up for everyone else. Where is that option?

I never had problems with it.

Exactly why my computer is no longer the sole computer running Ubuntu in my house.

[jeremy]

I have never had any problems, but make a pretty penny sorting it out for clients.

[Lord Illidan]

This was my exact experience and in fact, my initial motivation for leaving Windows. I just got tired of spending my time maintaining my computer rather than using my computer.

(slightly off topic) I stayed with Linux because it reminded me of how much fun I had as a kid in the 600 baud modem on a computer with 64K and learning to program days. Linux has motivated me to learn new programming languages and have fun making my equipment DO fun things instead of sitting around trying to PROTECT my equipment/os from harm.

Same thing here. Linux is just more fun to play with, change settings ad infinitum, etc. And scripting is fun, once you get your head around it, hehe..:D

[aysiu]

Those who said that they recieved spyware under Ubuntu only, can they come forward and post their experiences? Yeah, I'm curious about that as well. What, if known, was the activity that allowed spyware on to the computer, and how was it eventually detected? I'm just curious.

[Danielle]

hi, i'd like to know about tracking cookies and java driveby installs. how do you know you are protected? i know Linux systems are vulnerable to java exploits and i know they can allow cookies.

i only allow session cookies at afew sites and totally allow cookies at 5/6 sites. i have java disabled all the time but perhaps once or twice a year when it's needed. i also use an http proxy to filter all traffic before it gets to me. what do you do? if you allow both how do you know you're safe?

BTW i only know alittle bit about windows security, i don't know anything about *.nix systems :( i've only had Ubuntu for a month, i really like it though. :)

[Nimefurahi]

... and how was it eventually detected? I'm just curious.

One way is visually!

Over the years, using whatever GUI desktop/window manager that was to my liking at the time, I've always enabled some means of visual display of network activity. With just a quick glance at the visual representation of network activity by means of whatever graphic utility that was enabled, I was aware of network traffic from and (more importantly) to my box. Many window managers like IceWM and KDE had wonderful little panel applets that did this. Other window managers relied on the multitude of "freestanding" network activity monitors in all sorts of flavors and power levels. Trust me, there's lots of them.

Ubuntu, with its Gnome GUI Desktop/WM, utilizes the "Network Monitor" courtesty of Sun Microsystems. It sits in the desktop panel and flawlessly reports, through visual means, traffic of interest. This, my friend, is a valuable tool. If whilst you're typing away at a text document and in the corner of your eye you see some momentary activity, it could very well be the result of a fetchmail query, or a ntp update, or a dyn-dns update, or .... whatever. But if that activity is perfuse for no apparent reason, and if its length of stay is beyond an occasional ping... be on guard! This is when you defer your homework assignment and open EtherApe or Ethereal to capture network events.

Modem users (ppp and ADSL) can also very simply keep an eye on their modem's LEDs. Traffic through your system not initiated by you should stand out like a sore thumb. When you SEE activity and your own purposefully initiated network activity is nil, be on guard! Your before-unnoticed spyware may be dialing home.

Utilizing a network utility like Snort and periodically reviewing its IDS log is highly recomended, too.

Dare I say, most folks who say that they've never experienced spyware should really say that they've never experienced spyware that they are aware of. Expertly crafted spyware and hacks are very, very stealth. Believe me! More folks have been bitten that those who are aware of same.

Having said that, happy new year and watch your network activity!

[jsmidt]

Spyware plauged my Windows system. I have enjoyed the change

[SMF]

I was always getting hit by something when I first began using windows about um 5 years ago. Spyware, viruses and trojans too :mrgreen:
It took me along time to understand about firewalls, anti-virus and the real huge danger of using Internet Explorer so Opera helped alot and thus I still use Opera today on Ubuntu. Opera (IMO) is faster but lacks the open source. I am not a stranger to Firefox and I will have to do some catching up cus I know they have tons of plug-ins vs Opera. Sometimes I think the plug-ins I can get into over kill.

I have tried so many different programs while running my win 98 and win xp. I pretty much have it down to a science how to stay clean but I have to stay on top of the game and I will echo what some one else said: "I was spending far too much time dealing with security issues of one kind or another". I just started using Ubuntu about 3 days ago and I cant say I am happy when I have to log off ubuntu and fire up XP just to MSN voice chat with a special dear friend cus she insists on voice chat :(
I feel great on Ubuntu and when I get on Windows XP I feel kind of dirty. I see the potential in Ubuntu now I just have to learn how to unlock it and that is the challenge.
I still only have service pack 1 installed and if your pc is not clean and healthy and spyware free and you do a service pack 2 update your OS becomes a snail. I think I could pass the test but Bill is pretty much forcing people to install the service pack because a lot of new famous software will not run unless you have the service pack 2 updates installed. Example: MSN v Ten 10 and also when you install anything real new that is in compliance with Windows the newly installed programs will sometime cause your computer to crash and crash crash until you cant use the program you wanted and thus have to un-install it.

I am glad there is Linux and I am greatful for Ubuntu.

Peace.

[Stormy Eyes]

In light of this thread (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=108756), I'm just curious what people's spyware experiences have been.

I've never gotten spyware on a machine I own or use. I'm too damn paranoid. :)

[mstlyevil]

I've never gotten spyware on a machine I own or use. I'm too damn paranoid. :)

Naw you are just too damn smart. ;)

[Stormy Eyes]

Naw you are just too damn smart. ;)

Flattery will get you nowhere. I'm married. ;)

[Skye]

I learned about spyware and viruses and trojans the hard way- when I was younger, I didn't know nearly as much as I should have; as a result, I broke windows a few times before I knew enough to fix my screwups. That was years ago now- these days, I fix other people's infected computers.

I've never had any virii or spyware on any of my linux distros or setups.

[mstlyevil]

Flattery will get you nowhere. I'm married. ;)

That is a good thing because I am not gay either. :mrgreen:

[Krigl]

I used to browse net from school comps which used Wins and MSIE. The worst problem was when I stumbled about some pop-up windows - several times there happened to be porn pop-up which led to opening another porn pop-up and another etc., once one of them put some obsolete virus into the system but that was all.
When I bought my own comp and connected it to the dorm net I downloaded FireFox and gave IE a hearty asskick, then got SP2, Avast!, Ad-aware, Kerio Firewall (Deny everything that's not explicitly permitted). Dorm net has it's own NAT so with a bit of healthy paranoia I was pretty secure and never had problems.
Last weekend I came home and found some strange blue E on our home crap's (233 Mhz, 32 MB RAM boosted to 64, W98) desktop, dad put it back though I removed the icon to avoid others from temptation. Result was obvious - about 15 trojans, I cleaned them, wiped IE's icon from the desktop once again and for umpteenth time explained the "use K-Meleon or Links" thing.
Then I went to the tea room run by friends whom I installed Firefox and Avast! on their home box recently. "Could you come to see the comp, it's behaving strange". Eww, that was first time I saw what could really happen. They let another friend to use it so they weren't sure what he did but the comp was totally unusable. Firefox and avast! disappeared, IE changed it's homepage to some crappy page (Best porn/******/movies/music/software and many ****) also lost it's address bar so couldn't go anywhere, commercials popping-up even IE turned off. As a bonus, the comp self-restarted itself every 5-10 minutes. And these people had a hardware firewall so it's really about sane mind, no gadgets will save you if you don't use your brain. In two weeks, I'm coming home again so I'll make a complete reinstall, this time as dual-boot with Ubuntu, hope they'll learn from this.

[Krigl]

That is a good thing because I am not gay either. :mrgreen:
Well, I thought Stormy Eyes is a chick, firstly. The photo's small and too cut so at a brief look he looks like a girl.

[towsonu2003]

the comp self-restarted itself every 5-10 minutes.
one of my friends (have small business) had that kind of virus once. it was a nightmare: important documents, no backups, and reboot every 3 minutes.

I spent 5 hours finding and cleaning the virus without harming files and confg.

[Ptero-4]

hi, i'd like to know about tracking cookies and java driveby installs. how do you know you are protected? i know Linux systems are vulnerable to java exploits and i know they can allow cookies.

i only allow session cookies at afew sites and totally allow cookies at 5/6 sites. i have java disabled all the time but perhaps once or twice a year when it's needed. i also use an http proxy to filter all traffic before it gets to me. what do you do? if you allow both how do you know you're safe?

BTW i only know alittle bit about windows security, i don't know anything about *.nix systems i've only had Ubuntu for a month, i really like it though.

Danielle. Java is usually disabled by default, at least that is what I have seen in Konqueror. And thanks for the advice about tracking cookies, I didn't knew about those.
And what http proxy you use to filter traffic, I tried tor on my OSX box but had issues configuring it, maybe you can tell me how to make it work.

[matthew]

Well, I thought Stormy Eyes is a chick, firstly. The photo's small and too cut so at a brief look he looks like a girl.I think that's his wife.

[xequence]

I think that's his wife.

Hey Matthew... Someone had a thread about ubuntu guitar software yesterday. I was gonna tell them to ask you about it, but I got messed up and thought your username was mathew so I didnt tell them anything as the person with the username mathew wasnt you. So go find the thread and post on it, if you havnt already :P

[super]

my winxp has spyware right now. the notification area has a popup which says my system is under the control of another person and gives me a bogus ip address for this person. it then directs me to a website which will get rid of this virus and regain control of my computer for the low price of $29.99. right. :rolleyes:

&

stormy is a dude. but that's actually him in his avatar. i screwed this up already.

[matthew]

Hey Matthew... Someone had a thread about ubuntu guitar software yesterday. I was gonna tell them to ask you about it, but I got messed up and thought your username was mathew so I didnt tell them anything as the person with the username mathew wasnt you. So go find the thread and post on it, if you havnt already :PSweet. I'll look for it, thanks!

[Krigl]

Eye Candy = Stupid word
Hey, xequence, it's stupid only as long as you don't have it associated with Happy Tree Friends' episode called Eye Candy (watching it makes my eyes itchy and full of tears actually).

[nrwilk]

I have never gotten a single piece of malware, be it spy or any other type.
It might have helped that I've only VERY recently been running Windows. I have a Windows partition on this box, but it is the first time I've ever had it, and I absolutely never use it. When I installed it, I was pretty paranoid and I installed virus and firewall software before I ever plugged in a Cat5 cable. I really shouldn't have worried that much because I don't know if I've ever even been online with the Windows partition.

But, my hardcore Windows buddies insist that they've run Windows for years with nothing but the included firewall and have never gotten so much as a single virus, let alone a piece of spyware. Are those people who get malware just unaware, or are my friends extremely lucky?

I'd like to insist that the last statement here isn't calling those who've gotten malware ignorant. It's literally a question, just as I posed it.

[Zeroangel]

It is possible to use Windows without detecting a single piece of malware provided that you keep it up to date using WIndowsUpdate and possibly use a firewall program. I never got a single piece of malware on my Win2k installation because I was security minded (ie: did research into whether suspicious apps contained spyware before downloading them, and stayed off of porn sites for the most part). It is possible but it requires a moderate amount of knowledge and a little bit of vigilance. And yes, I will say that most people who get lots of malware are either ignorant, or just afraid to learn.

The big boogeymen of Windows these days is the dreaded rootkit technology which circumvents the kernel and prevents it from detecting certain files and processes. Rootkits are nearly impossible to detect by normal antivirus/antispyware products and can still give a hacker control of your machine without your knowledge. I've once had to fix a machine which had a rootkit and it wasn't pretty. After finally getting task manager working, I noticed that the process list appeared normal, processes were shown as using small amounts of CPU, the total of all listed processes never went above 50%, however something was slowing the the processor down massively. I used the process manager in Spybot (which does not rely too much on the kernel) to track down the culprit and spent the next next day fighting the malware before finally defeating it.

[Bandit]

I constantly got spyware on windows, didnt matter what browser I used.
On linux tho I have never had a problem. Or at least I havent noticed one if I did cause I run a hardware firewall via my router.
Cheers,
Joey

[bored2k]

I am sure my Windows installation has spyware, but that's mostly because my brother persists on installing spyware-featured software and hates it when we run anti-spyware tools because well, they remove his applications. Other than that, I'm sure we still have some unwanted spyware on our Windows box.

[mstlyevil]

I am sure my Windows installation has spyware, but that's mostly because my brother persists on installing spyware-featured software and hates it when we run anti-spyware tools because well, they remove his applications. Other than that, I'm sure we still have some unwanted spyware on our Windows box.

These wouldn't happen to be anyway related to porn? I find that when I clean peoples infected machines it is 75% of the time related to porn.

[bored2k]

Although I'm usually not around and staring at the monitor when he's using the computer and that may be a possibility, I wouldn't think that's where most of them enter. Although I don't talk about it with him, I periodically monitor "his" partition via my Linux ones (what videos does he have, what's new in Program Files, etc). On top of that, he uses P2P, so I know that's not where spyware come from. At least not most of his.

Last time I did a Spybot check on it (he hates and "forbids" its use), I saw a lot of gator, mostly from online Poker games and software installed to "correctly view websiteX".

[weasel fierce]

So, are there any linux or ubuntu specific equivalents of adaware and suchlikes ?

[Alpha_toxic]

I voted "I've never...", wich is not exactly true. Currently I really don't have any add/spyware/viruses on my Windows, but I have had some over the years. I voted NO, because everything that I've had, was there only because of my mistakes (precisely "curiosity killed the cat").
It's sth like I clearly see that a .wmv is trying to call home, but I'm just too curious to see what kind of deadly dirty thingy will happen :) . So sometimes I intentionaly get some badware when my box is scheduled for reinstall anyway.

But I've never seen any of that stuff for Linux. If anyone finds some, PM me, I'll test it ;)

P.S. in my personal experience I think it's not that hard to keep a win machine working and badware/virus free. Just don't use IE and WMP, don't open strange e-mail attachments, and try to stay away from big "CLICK HERE" or "ENTER HERE" links. On my win I have no firewall, anti-virus, I haven't installed any updates. It's only one tiny router guarding me from the hostile net and It's OK.

P.P.S. I don't advise anyone to stay offguard like me. I don't have ANY critical information on my box And I don't care if it gets cracked. I can allways reinstall...

[vayu]

I'm Having some VERY strange occurences. I was playing around in FreeBSD trying to get flash working. I clicked the mouse wheel and up popped some weird kind of site, "hotornot". I couldn't believe it. I went to my home directory and deleted the mozilla directory, tried it again, this time I got a Microsoft page about IE. I tried it a few more times and eventually the hotornot site came back.

I started to check my other computers. My other desktop with Breezy didn't do anything. On my laptop with Breezy on it, if I click the mouse wheel I get a google page that is loaded with some kind of search that results in not found.

How could this be happening and how do I stop it???!!! I've deleted all the cookies and personal history, etc from the preferences in Firefox. I deleted the entire mozilla directory and still if I click the mouse wheel I get that site or once in a great while the microsoft site.

[Zeroangel]

Firefox has a feature where if you highlight some text then click on your mousewheel, it will take you directly to the very first site that would normally appear in the a google search (equivalent to google's "I'm feeling lucky" search). The preferences seem to stay even throughout different browsing settings.

So if you highlight the text, FreeBSD and click the mousewheel, it will take you to the FreeBSD site. If you close your browser that preference might remain (but it doesn't happen often)

Try highlighting different text then clicking your mousewheel.

[vayu]

Firefox has a feature where if you highlight some text then click on your mousewheel

That was it! I was entirely baffled. When I delete the contents of the clipboard nothing happens, then when I copy some text (from any application), click on the mousewheel then bingo, a seemingly random page comes up. Thanks.