General discussion

When I was less clued up about internet security, I used to download all sorts of programs of the internet such as Smiley central, MSN Messenger Plus!, Kazaa, and many other "free" software products from various rogue download sites.

Every single directory on my computer filled up with internet shortcuts leading to adult sites, gambling sites, counterfeit Rolex watches etc. It got to the point that the computer was rendered unusable, so I had to reformat the hard drive and start from scratch.

Also during the same year, the family computer got filled up with spyware, and some other malware. The internet connection ended up so slow that it was unusable. When we phoned up, my ISP told me to stop using that computer or they may cut us off because it had been involved in DDoS attacks, mass spamming and all sorts of activities caused by various browser exploits, spyware and viruses.

About two years ago, I stunbled upon smiley central. Upon downloading, I was very happy with the product, and sent probably four people emails suggesting they try smiley central. (They have an invite a friend feature) A day later, my godaddy password wasn't working. At the time I wasn't worried, thinking I must have changed it and not remembered. (i often forget passwords) As I told a fifth friend about it an hour later, he said, "It's probably loaded with spyware, I would never download that." That's when it hit me, my godaddy password was gone, that means THEY probably stole it. After checking all my pages to make sure they were unedited and spending several hours sorting things out with godaddy, (we eventually proved we were the owner of the account with the last four digits of our credit card number, and our past passwords) I had to change all my other passwords and ended up nearly forgetting many of my new passwords. At the time, we had mcafee, which I ran probably 8 times, as well as running adaware, and windows defender. And of course, I uninstalled it as well.
My brother had scared me too, saying that my whole computer was probably permenantly messed up, and that I needed a new one. (he tends to exaggerate) My computer slowly turned back to it's original and normal state, however, had I not changed it that day, they could have looked at my account information and already changed the last four digits of the credit card (So I couldn't recover it) and edited my website as much as they wished, as well as hack my email.

Rogue security software like MalwareProtector 2008, released within the past few days, is software that uses malware to advertise or install itself. The "free" software often gives false positive alarms to make the user pay for the full version. Unless you have had the bad experience of installing this type of malicious software, you may not be aware that such a class of software even exists.

Check out Bill Mullins blog article and remember, if you use material from someone else's blog, please give them credit!

Bill,

When I came accross the story that had been stolen from you I had no idea that it wasn't written by the person who published it. Good that you informed us. Softratty should have referred to your original posting since they used your text.

I have enjoyed your recent posting on Internet security.
Keep up the good work!

Esa