We’ve been watching an increasing amount of “Stop Spam/Malware” infomercials of late. 99NoSpyware dot com, Malware44Gone dot com, etc etc. Not exactly the actual domain names and I’ve written out the URL so as not to solicit investigation nor give them a free publicity but they're out there and looking for the un-suspecting.

Along these “Anti-Spyware” same tricks & traps, we’ve been recovering and cleaning an above average amount of spyware infected computers. From tracking down the history of clicks, the culprit: a little safe looking pop-up,

“Your Computer is infected with Spyware/Malware/Viruses click here to fix”

STOP! Your computer is more than likely NOT infected! It will be if your knee-jerk reaction is to panic and scan the computer as it suggests. It’s confusing on purpose and specifically designed to illicit that reaction.

Few bullets to mentally note somewhere: 

• A legitimate website WILL ALMOST never tell you computer is infected.  We say almost never because there are always exceptions. It is not really the websites fault in theses exceptions, more so the adware content they’re being delivered.
• A malicious advertisement, site already infected or just a bad website to visit (illegal download sites, some p2p sites, some malicious pornography sites, topsites; the backend of the WWW) will propagate pop-ups of this nature. Judging by the number of infections, they’re doing a decent job of it.
• Phishing emails selling products or supposed social network friend requests.
• Some programs designed to scan for spyware/malware are in fact themselves spyware and malware.
• Don’t click “Scan Now” on pop-ups; don’t send your computer to these, ‘speed up my pc’ or ‘stop spyware’ infomercial sites.

Here is some help and be cautious with your clicks. Understanding, is the best defense against Malware*.

http://www.bitdefender.com/ - FREE, this online scan is reputable and will ask for some browser objects to be installed. They only operate when scanning from BitDefender. Should check out their (paid) Firewall product while you're there.

http://www.safer-networking.org/ - FREE, Home of Spybot Search and Destroy. The piece of the defensive puzzle: I good spyware scanner.

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm - FREE, the host file - increases browser load time, but not anything ridiculous (might be for 4+ year old systems, test it.)

For PopUps (stay away from toolbar software) & ( using 2 or more browsers is ok ) Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox

*Definitions: MALWARE often the group name type of:  | SPYWARE | TROJAN | ADWARE