Spyware Baddies

Where have you been!?!?

Well, unfortunately, I've been having a bit of trouble with some spyware / malware / trojan / general baddies infecting my PC.

After a week of scanning, and techie advice, I think the threat is now gone, which is a relief because like most people I rely on internet services quite a lot, e.g. banking, shopping, etc.

So I can't recommend highly enough investing some time to install some free protection against these threats, if not already done so.

Advice here:

http://www.firewallguide.com/spyware.htm

http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/cchelp/home/spyware.html

http://netsecurity.about.com/cs/generalsecurity/a/aa050204.htm


Vulnerabilities I learnt about were :

• Older Java versions are exposed, and the latest version needs to be downloaded at http://www.java.com/en/
• AND once the latest version of Java is installed, REMOVE the older versions in control panel - Add / Remove.
• Internet Explorer seems more susceptible to browser hijacks, its firefox competitor appears much more secure.
  
• Any baddies dealt with, still may be backed up in the windows restore facility. This requires System Restore to be turned off, and back on again, in order to clear the old files.

So anyway, nothing to do with cycling, but that's why I haven't been able to post lately.