Malware Responsibility

You could try running the microsoft malicious software tool. start>command prompt> type MRT and when it asks you tell it to run the long version. david

mrt.exe I meant. Or run mrt from start>run david

The problem here is that some of the origins of the malware are in other countries to the infected person. It's a very common problem and Interpol won't be knocking on anyone's door anytime soon. International law is hard to enforce...think of Ronnie Biggs! and not every country cooperates with each other. The best way for this is like the common cold...prevention.

Right now is not too late for you to get some registry cleaners/antispyware and anti malware. You may be tempted to get a freebie, but because you are infected you should look more towards a paid option. The antimalware (if any) obviously wasn't good enough.

My friend got infected recently and his account posts on Facebook every day or so now....in turn, a few more have clicked on the links and been infected.

Some of the misdirections, were companies that I've come across on the net before. They weren't small one man bands.

Also I don't agree international laws are so hard to enforce that they are worthless. Every day people have cross border disputes etc. These companies sell across borders.

Why can they have connections with the malware people and still not be brought to book. At least publicly shown to have links. Some have shareholders etc.

I share in your frustration at the complete lack of prosecution for such activities, but I think there is a deeper problem as well. Not that I can define clearly what the problem is, but I can at least cite a personal example...

The bank I use posts "pending" charges therefore I can see something before it ever goes through. I had a $4800 charge pending (2 tickets with South African Airlines) that was complete fraud. As I said it was pending... so I immediately notified the bank that fraud was in progress and... nada... they refused to stop the charges. They told me the money would be refunded after it went through and I filled out the proper paperwork. (I tried to argue, pleaded a bit, asked if they were going to cover my mortgage in the meantime, nothing mattered). In summary, they ALLOWED fraud to occur, and when asked who would investigate this they said "NO ONE".

About 6 months after this occurred, I had another mess of charges show up (about $500 worth). So I called one of the companies listed to see if I could get any information about the account. The company when told the charges were fraudulent said they would refund the money, but wouldn't release the personal account information due to the "rights to privacy" of the person who signed up. Seriously?! Privacy rights? They did say they would release it to law enforcement. So I contact my local police department. When I gave them the phone number and asked them to call to get the information they said "NO". wow... seriously? NO?! So a police officer wouldn't take 2 minutes of his time to call for a little information (I even offered to dial the number and let him use my phone) and nope...

There is little to no investigation let alone prosecution to real crimes that affect real people. They can make every excuse in the book... it's happening somewhere else so we don't have jurisdiction, "there's no victim", we're understaffed, its not a cost effective investigation, or whatever.

Perhaps it the problem stems from law enforcement... perhaps in the law itself... but either way even the crimes that take real money out of my pocket aren't even looked at let alone the crimes that wreak havoc on my computer.

Cui podest? Who will benefit?

Why so many viruses? Who makes them? How many companies in only the anti-whatever software? Is there a cross competition? Half of the companies detecting and preventing viruses made by the other half, and vice-versa? Gosh, am I mean or what!

The reasons and actions of malware are as diverse as society. If you spend a good bit of time researching this on the internet, you'll find Large amounts of money are made, So its becoming big business.

It takes a good bit of work to keep a computer clean.

If you do get infected, you might try a free program called COMBOFIX . I've had good success with it several times. I did donate to them because of haw successful the program is.

Every day is a new situation, so keep your antivirus updated and set to its maximum settings and scan often. That will help.

Web redirection is the least of your worries. All your information is at stake.

Check this out:

http://secure-computer-solutions.com/blog/2010/10/why_you_should_backup_your_mbr.html

Switch to Linux. Back in my Windows days, I had frequent encounters with a variety of flavors of malware- some from the Internet, some from the wife's usb stick that picked up viruses at the university- no matter how good your anti-malware software, the bad guys are one step ahead of the good guys, always. So far, Linux has proved to be a hard rarget- nary a problem since switching.

I personally think Microsoft should get at least some of the blame for putting out pretty vulnerable software...

The malware makers do not necessarily make money by linking you directly to the shops that sell whatever you're searching for; they are likely making money off the click throughs on advertising.

It's all done behind the scenes (to you), and every successful redirect makes them a few pennies. Multiply that by a few million infected computers and next thing you know is that there's enough money involved to make a politician salivate.

Hooker

Whenever I see these types of threads, I always put in a vote for Sandboxie... or something similar. Most infections happen when visiting oddball websites -- or even legitimate looking sites. A "sandboxed" browser, coupled with a good anti-virus program goes a long way in protecting one from rogue applets. A little over a year ago I got infected on my computer at work and that's when I discovered the idea of running ones browser in a "sandboxed" environment. Makes a LOT of sense and so far has worked well. Reported attack sites are flagged by both my anti-virus software, as well as the database of reported attack sites provided by Spybot and Spyware Blaster. But they have not been able to infect my "real" system. If you're going to use Windows (at least up through XP), you may as well understand you need to be proactive.