Spyware alert ...

[minx]

I guess a lot of you may already know this, but just in case ...

ZoneAlarm caught a program called sentry.exe trying to access the internet when I connected up tonight. As I wasn't sure what it was, I did a search and found two files - sentry.exe and sentry.ini in my c:\windows directory.

Looking at the properties of the file, a website (ipinsight.com) was referenced. Turns out it's spyware ... usually installed with Morpheus which can supposedly pinpoint your location and track websites you visit etc.

Problem is, neither Ad Aware or McAfee caught this (suppose it's not strictly speaking a virus) ... I was only aware when ZoneAlarm blocked it.

Anyhow, it would be well worth having a scan for the aforementioned nasty files ...

[fishfreek]

Thanks for posting. I am suprised that AdAware did not catch it. When is the last time you have updated AdAware as I know just like virus protection they are always releasing new spyware def's.

[minx]

I updated Ad Aware only last weekend ... that's why I was a bit miffed it didn't catch it.

I'd be curious to hear how many of you guys find it ...

[Chrismac]

Well we all love that Stuff hey lol,

The funny thing is that spyware is only installed if you alow it to be installed
anytime you download Freeware there is some form of Spyware involved usually to provide the company that distributes the freeware income.

pretty easy to avoid getting it on your system just look for it installing,
you can get different forms of Spy - Adware from installing game you get off the Cereal box,

(lol you may all think I have no life he he he, but no less then twice a day I run into a data flow issue due to the stuff,

You can read up all about these:

Here is one that will tell you what software that may have Spy-adware bundled.

http://www.suttondesigns.com/EnigmaBrowser/Spyware.html


Good site if you can follow along:

http://cexx.org


fun stuff
Chris.

[Grant R]

Why do other people / firms particularly want to see what sites you go on anyway ??!

[fishfreek]

Originally Posted by Grant R

Why do other people / firms particularly want to see what sites you go on anyway ??!

Grant, advertising and selling of information. If a company knows the types of websites the people that download and run their software it gives them an opertunity to establish what kinds of people are using their product. Maybe they will elect to advertise on the most popular of those sites. Maybe they will see what other types of things these people are into and develop software around that target audiance.

Also, after you collect a good size database of userinfo you can easily sell it to other companies.

How do you think spammers work. They buy a list of e-mail addresses from a company. They then send out messags about their product to that e-mail list.

[Grant R]

So thats probably where most of my JUNK comes from.

[Thaiboxer]

Cexx is a good site. I also like reading on:

http://www.sputum.com/cns/tools.html

that's good sometimes for spam info.

I hate spyware.

[Chrismac]

So Do I
thats why I don't install it,