Worms, Trojans, Spyware and other Malware part 3

Last month I told you that even reputable companies can install things on your computer that can compromise your security and some signs to look out for to spot an infection. Before I leave the subject for a while I have a couple of final points.

Most people will have an anti-virus program on their computer. Occasionally people won't bother or their subscription will have run out which amounts to the same thing. Sometimes there will be multiple anti-virus programs. This is NOT a GOOD THING. Anti-virus programs that are worth having have some form of active protection which checks email and downloads for viruses on-the-fly. If two programs try to do this at the same time all sorts of things can go wrong.

The same applies to anti-spyware tools with active protection. It is all right to have two anti-spyware scanners but only one scanner should have active protection enabled.

I have cleaned two laptops recently that were deeply infested with malware. The most significant infestation had 26 different varieties of malware: 10 spyware, 8 downloaders, 7 adware and last but not least the totally useless and intrusive winfixer. Of these the downloaders AKA Trojans were probably the most worrying because with these someone else has control of your machine. Here is the full list: