On a regular basis I find myself fighting spyware on a client’s machine.  I keep asking myself is there a better way to protect against this?  Should I use a different antivirus or antispyware vendor?  Should we instate policies to prevent people from browsing the web and only allow them to go to very specific sites?

On a regular basis I find myself fighting spyware on a client’s machine.  I keep asking myself is there a better way to protect against this?  Should I use a different antivirus or antispyware vendor?  Should we instate policies to prevent people from browsing the web and only allow them to go to very specific sites?  Unfortunately I haven’t come up with a good answer to these questions.  We routinely try using different antivirus and antispyware products to see if there is a better one.  Just when we have one that we thought works a new infection comes out that gets around the products security.  We have tried using various web filtering services to block users from going to infected websites or inappropriate websites.  This works to some degree but is not nearly as good as I would like.  And what happens when a legitimate site gets infected with a virus that then gets pushed to a user inadvertently?

The only solution we have found is to educate the users on what to look for when browsing the web that could be potentially dangerous.  Some rules of thumb:

• Popup messages stating you have lots of infections are viruses or spyware themselves and are trying to get you to click the blinking ok button in the center of the screen….  DON’T and click the small x in the top right to close the window.
• Never open an attachment in an email that you don’t recognize or weren’t expecting.  Even emails from people you know could contain potentially dangerous software.
• Only use your credit card on the web for sites that are secure (the first part of the url should start with https://).  Never use your credit card to make a website popup go away or on a site that is not secure.
• Always keep your antivirus software up to date and run scans at least once per week.

My next blog will discuss the differences between a virus, malware, adaware and rootkits.  Stay tuned.