Who will protect us from Malwarian invasions?

Anyone who runs Windows or who spends time online knows what a constant annoyance viruses, malware, adware, spyware, Trojans, unwanted self-installing “bars,” and all that other crap can be. I like to think that I am at least fairly conscientious about protecting my computer. After considerable research, I switched from Trend Micro (which missed a lot of threats and froze my computer when it performed its daily updates — something I used to dread!) to Vipre. Vipre is much better at not getting in the way, and since I installed it in August, it has found and eliminated 41 risks. But no one anti-virus is enough, and as I learned from talking to longtime friend and blogger Dean Esmay, it is a good idea to use a separate program which specifically looks for the adware and malware threats that conventional anti-virus programs miss. So in addition to Vipre, I use Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, which on thr first day I tried it found nine infected files that Vipre had missed, and many more since then.

However, yesterday a seemingly minor irritation led me to realize that I had some sort of problem which neither Malwarebytes nor Vipre had caught. I was doing one of the usual, never-ending Windows updates, when the installer flagged me that one update — “Security Update for Windows XP (KB2633171)” could not be installed. After repeated attempts after rebooting failed, I googled the damn annoyance, and found an interesting discussion here by people who had trouble with the same update, and who had gotten the same Error Code (0x8007054F) that I had. While Microsoft people warned that the problem could be from malware, this was greeted by the usual blame-Microsoft anger:

Let’s go Microsoft, let’s get on the ball & fix this issue. Stop giving us the run around & fix your servers & file downloads. I atempted to install KB2556532 & KB2633171 All updates including these 2 appear as a successful install but when I try to run Windows Updates again they continue to appear as a new update. I attempted to install the standalone version of both in safe mode & normal mode (alternatively) & Windows Updates continues to feed me these two updates. When I choose to hide this update: KB2633171 I ran Windows update again & it giave me this update: KB2556532 same exact issue.

Microsoft, please search the internet on this issue & you wil learn that this issue is not an isolated one. The issue is on YOUR side. Please fix this issue immediately & stop giving us the troubleshooting run around.

That was pretty much my reaction too, because I was really frustrated and have enough confidence in my anti-virus programs to feel sure that I couldn’t possibly have a virus/malware problem. Just to be sure, I had run the scans again, and nothing turned up. But I read on, as people kept insisting that a new tool called Windows Defender Offline could catch things nothing else could:

….errors like that tend to indicate malware corruption to me. That is why I tried out the new Windows Defender tool. I had no problem downloading and creating the boot CD though it was a slow process. As I said the scan found and cleaned 1 trojan. The standalone installer worked after that. I posted my successful results in hopes that it might help someone else. I took no further steps beyond that.

It was a pain in the ass to download Windows Defender Offline, because it requires that you first install a thingamajig called “Imapi” or something, which requires separate downloading, Windows validation, installation, and rebooting. But finally I had the DVD, and it booted the computer right up and went to work.

As Windows was not running on its own, I could not get a screen shot, but I took a photo:

To my astonishment, it found thirteen (13) malwarial infections. What a lucky number!

And here they are in case anyone is interested in such geeky nonsense:

After that, Windows update KB2633171 installed itself without incident. So I’m sold on Windows Defender Offline, and I agree with this guy who says it can get you out of a jam.

Nobody likes malware. Correction: nobody with a soul likes malware, which effectively excludes malware writers and script kiddies who find it monetarily beneficial (the former) or just plain amusing (the latter) to spread infected files. Microsoft certainly isn’t amused by malware and has built a tool to help restore systems ravaged by rootkits and other cruft.

Windows Defender Offline Beta is a new security tool Microsoft has made available to help remove hard to find malicious software and potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), such as rootkits and advanced malware that might slip past anti-malware programs.

It sure did in my case, and it is freely downloadable here.

While it doesn’t seem “fair” that I should have to be running three different programs, that’s the way the cookies crumble these days.

You might think that in light of the headaches and damages to ordinary people (and property) that these awful malware writers do, that the government might be more interested in doing something. But you’d be wrong. Instead, our government’s top priority is to go after people who download movies, and threaten the rest of us with a “free speech kill switch,” which sounds like big government malware on steroids.

I feel a lot more threatened by actual home computer invasions than by the so-called “pirates” who allegedly threaten entertainment industry profits, but what do I know?