From: BillK (bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 08:09:29 MST
Hi
Alex and Reason gave some excellent advice on backups, full antivirus
scans and installing a good firewall. (The XP built-in firewall is not
good enough).
There are Trojan programs which can install a keyboard logger, which are
delivered via email and require you to click to run an attached file.
You should NEVER click on an attached file sent to you - even when they
appear to come from trusted friends. Save the attached file to disk
first and scan it with every security program you've got. Firstly, it
may only be pretending to come from a friend, and secondly, your friend
may have got a virus which is emailing itself out to everyone in his
address book.
But McAfee antivirus should detect them anyway (assuming you keep it
up-to-date!). You can always try different virus scanners for extra
security.
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp
will both do a free on-line virus scan for you.
You may have to disable McAfee while competitive virus scanners are
running.
One or two Anti-Trojan scanners are a good idea as well.
Try: http://www.anti-trojan.net/en/
Spycop is recommended if you suspect keyboard logging software has been
installed. Quote:
'SpyCop is the recognized leader in spyware removal and spyware
detection. It protects you against threats from spy software, covert
computer surveillance programs and network monitoring software. SpyCop
is similar to a virus scanner, except it searches for and tracks down
computer monitoring spy programs. Once downloaded and installed on your
PC, SpyCop can be used to scan your entire system for the presence of
any of the known computer monitoring spy programs available.'
But people need physical access to your computer to install a keyboard
logging package, so if you find one installed then you've got serious
security problems. If they can install programs like that, they can
install anything else they want, copy any files in your computer or even
copy your whole hard disk. In this case you should assume everything in
your PC has been compromised.
Best wishes, BillK
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