How Do You Put Together The Ultimate Computer Security Kit?
Wow, thanks for all the responses guys. And to the Mac/Linux evangelists, two points: one, since user ignorance was what got my uncle’s computer into such a sorry state, I can’t imagine asking him to deal with another OS. And two, in point of fact, it is possible to run a clean Windows machine. I’ve never had a spyware problem on my XP machine, simply because I’m knowledgeable about computers and run several anti-spyware programs, two anti-virus programs, a firewall, and I keep my software and OS updated. It’s user ignorance that causes the majority of spyware and security problems, not the OS.
Don’t panic. In my experience, it’s often less trouble to clean up even a quite filthy system than it is to rebuild it from the ground up and get it back into a state the customer feels happy with. First thing to do is create a new user account called Admin, then log into it. That alone will stop a fair bit of crap (the kind that runs from files stored in the user profile and starts via registry keys under HKCU). Then cut your uncle’s existing account back to a Limited User. Explain to him that the occasional Access Denied message for him is worth putting up with to stop malware getting system-wide installation privileges. Spybot Search & Destroy 1.4 will get rid of most spyware just fine, even if the system is heavily infested. Install it from Admin, bring it up to date, make sure SDHelper is installed, run an Immunize, then use its Automation settings to make it run once at next startup and clean everything it finds, then reboot. Once SS&D has run once from Admin, log on to Uncle and
