Spyware Detector and Audacity

[zootermeer]

Hi. I am using Spyware Detector on my PC and recently it has begun to tell me that when it scans after I have used Audacity(version 1.2.6(3)) it finds the following worm "Worm.Kolabc" associated with a number of suspect URL entries with your product name on them! Does anyone else have this problem? I have repeatedly asked their support team to get it fixed ....but as yet NOTHING!

[kozikowski]

<<<I have repeatedly asked their support team to get it fixed>>>

Whose support team? If you got the program from the official sites, it should arrive with no problems. If you got it from somewhere else, it could very well be infected.

Koz

[zootermeer]

Hi again. I have asked the Spyware Detector support team to fix this. Their product is a licenced and paid for pice of software that is regularly updated. The most recent copy of Audacity that I have (1.2.6(3)) was downloaded via your official website today. This I did after deleting the previous copy from my PC and quarantining all the flagged problems. S/D occassionally put out upgrades that fail to recognise certain products as genuine for some reason. The most recent was Firefox!!

[kozikowski]

There are a number of different ways to protect your PC from evil software, and each package does it differently with different success rates and different affects on the machine. You might consider disconnecting your machine from the internet while you're producing your work (air gap firewall) and then connect it later. Then turn the virus software off while it's not needed.

Also highly recommended is a physical firewall, switch, or hub between you and the internet connection. Then a strong, intrusive virus package isn't as important.

Koz

[steve]

Old versions (pre 2006) of "Spyware Detector" had a bad reputation for producing false positives, though apparently it has improved a lot in this respect. All "malware" detection is required to use some degree of guesswork in determining if something is spyware/virus, or clean. If it is too aggressive, you will get false positives - if it is not aggressive enough, it could miss real security problems.

Audacity 1.2.6 has been around for a long time now, and all of the major security product manufacturers agree that it is clean. Also, as it is open source, anyone with sufficient programming knowledge can freely look at the source code and see exactly what is in there. This is of course only true for the genuine product (downloaded from the official download location).

On Windows computers I use "Spyware Blaster" http://www.javacoolsoftware.com , Spybot S&D http://www.safer-networking.org and Avast http://www.avast.com for malware prevention (I am behind a hardware firewall on my Windows machine, so a software firewall is not required). I happily recommend these programs, which, when used according to the instructions, provide an excellent layer of security and are free for personal use.

My other machine uses Linux.

[zootermeer]

Hi thks for that. Have downloaded SpyBot and run it after Audacity. Guess what it did not find the Worm.Kolabc .............. but told me that there were 174 bad entries ..... all associated with SpyWare Detector. Another set of phantoms or what?

[kozikowski]

It is to each company's benefit to always "find something." to scare you into continuing the account. Have you noticed that two of your packages are now fighting with each other? You and the machine are irrelevant.

One of the radio techie gurus once admitted in an unguarded moment that he uses a good hardware switch and firewall...and no virus software on his machines at all. He had to stop saying that when the virus companies started throwing money at him to advertise their products. If you pay attention to his commercials, he never says the magic words that he personally uses any of these products. Just that they're really great and you should use all of them.

Microsoft actually has a passable virus scanner that you run live from microsoft.com.

I took all of my PCs off line and spent the next two weeks trying to scrape all the spyware detectors, trojan eliminators, and virus protection off. Norton, under severe pressure, finally issued the Norton Removal Tools. Too many people reduced their machines to trash trying to remove Norton using the regular tools.

Over on the video forums, it's a given that the surest way to kill video capture and playback is to run anti-virus software at the same time.

Koz

[steve]

but told me that there were 174 bad entries ..... all associated with SpyWare Detector. Another set of phantoms or what?

I don't know enough about Spyware doctor to be able to comment on this, but there is a frequent issue that occurs when using more than one anti-virus or anti spyware program at the same time. Allow me to give an example;

AVG is a pretty good anti-virus program, though I've now stopped using it because it has become rather too bloated for my ageing computer. However, AVG will frequently get flagged as being associated with viruses when scanning the computer with other anti-virus software. The reason for this is that on detection of viruses, AVG will usually move the file that registers as containing a virus to the AVG "virus vault". While in the "virus vault" that file is unable to run as an application, and so, if it really is a virus, it is unable to cause any further damage to the computer. However, other anti-virus programs will still recognise the "signature" of the virus and detect it as such, unaware that it has been "neutralised".

Koz's comment about the motivation for anti-malware programs to always find problems is valid, but probably less so for the applications that I mentioned as they are all freeware, so the authors of those programs have little to benefit from you using their program.

With many security programs it is difficult to tell the difference between a "real and imminent danger" and a very minor issue that may or may not be a threat. This very forum may use cookies to identify you when you visit, simply for the purpose of logging you in automatically (if you have selected that option). This is a proper use of cookies, that benefits the user (convenience) without infringing on the privacy of the user in any way. But even so, some anti-spyware programs will flag up that cookie in red as a threat. One of the things that I like about Spybot S&D is that it will usually give an explanation of the threats detected, and with a little help from Google you can make up your own mind if it is a serious threat, or just a very minor issue.

[zootermeer]

Hi. Thanks guys. Will bear in mind what you have posted .... and remain vigilant.