More on security

Two things:

1) On those two machines I worked on over the weekend, the ones infected by the rogue programs, one machine had an up-to-date, fully-functioning copy of Norton 360 installed and the other had McAfee. These are two of the best security programs money can buy. I saw absolutely no problems with the Norton installation. This tells me, plain and simple, that Norton did not do the job it was being paid for, and allowed the rogue program to take over the machine and thereafter run wild. Not nice. On the McAfee machine, although the system tray icon was a red M, McAfee's indication that all was well (hey, since when does RED mean all's well McAfee?), in fact the McAfee security suite was NOT even running. It wasn't clear to me if this was as a result of the rogue program or if it was a bad installation, but the user had downloaded McAfee fom AOL and assumed that it was running. Hmmm.... It obviously wasn't!

2) As posted before, Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) is downloaded to your system each month (an updated version) via Automatic Updates. It turns out that MSRT has an option for Quick Scan and one for Full Scan. I do not yet know which option Micosoft uses to run this tool in the background, or for that matter, if it runs it at all. I take it on faith that they do at least run the quick scan. However, being the Doubting Thomas that I am, I download MSRT manually every month and personally run a Full Scan. This is a one-time run once a month. The program takes a very long time to run, so I start it when going to bed and let it run. When finished it does not tell you how long it took, but on occasion when I have run it during the day I have seen it still active after more than 3 hours. It could take 6 hours for all I know, but it is a rather painless process for me to download it and install it and let it run once a month. I view this as an ounce of prevention. If you would like to do the same, you can download MSRT at one of the two following sites:

32-bit version (for most of you): MSRT

64-bit version (for you others): MSRT

If you are not sure if you are running the 32 bit or 64 bit version of your operating system, download the 32 bit version of MSRT. If it runs, you have the correct version! If it doesn't, it will indicate that you need the 64 bit version.