Illegal Legals

There you are,

you have been trained to use your computer

you have your new computer

you have your internet connection

you have your firewall protection

you have your antivirus protection

This is it you are ready for action and suitable prepared...

or are you?

Ever heard of 'malware'?

This is stuff that is not illegal(yet), not destructive like a virus, not installed without your consent so what is it?

It is software written to mal-practice the actions of other software.  For example you search for 'ink cartridges' and it might take you to a different supplier of ink cartridges rather than the one you clicked on.

It gets on your PC by pretending to be something you want:

• Free PC speed up software
• Cheap business card making tool 
• low cost photo editor

Then the trick is to show you the legal acceptance form that you never read, do you, and when you click ok - all the things accurately described in that legal acceptance form are installed.  IE. It is 'Trojan Horse' with a label on the side that says "Soldiers Hidden Inside - roll into your castle if you want to be taken over" in small print...

Hence it is legal.

How do you protect yourself - well it is malware so people on the internet are writing about it and registering complaints all the time about the specifc software affected.  Two tools I know of are starting to deal with this malware, but you have to take the first step and be careful about the small print.  Before accepting the legal terms run a search on google, for example, for 'xyz software problems'.  If anyone has posted problems with the software and people generally shout about malware, you should find it come up.

In fact this is useful advice no matter which software you are installing...

The two tools I personally use are:

Adaware from lavasoft - Nicolas Stark Computing Sweden

Spybot Search & Destroy - Safer Networking Ltd Ireland

Both have free versions available for download and home use.

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