Ian
Tue Apr 26 07:58:28 CDT 2005
On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 06:58:45 -0500, "Lil' Dave"
<spamyourself@virus.net> wrote:
>Recently fixed an acquaintance's home PC. She had XP SP1 HE, and AOL 9.0
>installed. Multiple users, and her grandkids renamed the administrators
>logon username. She had no AV, and the firewall was McAfee's freeware
>version.
They dont have a freeware version. It is free to AOL members on KW:
Firewall.
> Panda's online AV scanner found over 250 infected files, and a
>memory running trojan. AOL's popup blocker was failing to block many
>popups. McAfee's firewall popup blocker was ineffective in the AOL
>environment.
McAfee Personal FIrewall plus doesnt have a popup blocker.
>The only WWW browser environment that seemed to be popup
>blocker effective was in IE standalone, not in AOL itself.
You shouldn't have problems blocking popups with AOL's version if the
machine is clean of spyware.
>Wiped HDs only partition, XP partition, and started anew with two NTFS
>partitions. One for the OS, and one for user data. Installed XP, XP SP2
>CD, Panda Titanium AV, and AOL 9.0, in that order. The SP2 firewall was
>implemented AV defintions were updated, and MS updates were installed.
>
>Was disappointed in the Adminstrator's user control in the XP HE
>environment. Recommneded XP Pro.
Overkill. The home user doesnt need it.
> The source of the viruses and trojans
>were obviously from the internet. In light of AOL's popblocker being poor,
>full of holes and basically ineffective, I sincerely doubt the parental
>surfing control of users in AOL being viable. Is there an aftermarket
>product that can do the same in the AOL environment and is effective?
I would take these steps to protect this family from online threats.
Speaking from my days as an AOL employee I would try to advise members
to move away from the AOL client altogether. There is an AOL dialler
feature available to the member since aol 9. Use this to connect to
the internet and use Firefox as the internet browser. AOL's content
with the exeption of the music is shit anyways and the AOL client uses
so much ram the freed up resources on the pc is very much welcome.
Install a good personal firewall. There is nothing wrong with zone
alarm/sygate/kerio all have a free version. If you want to get the pay
for versions then it is money well spent. Install Microsoft
Antispyware. This will protect the user from spyware/adware shitware
which in my view is the cause of the popups in the first place.
Enable Auto update on Windows XP and promote safe surfin practices
although with Mozilla products being used this is half the job done.
Set program access and defaults to Mozilla. Hide IE and AOL 9
altogether.
Footnote: AOL's client software is bloated and unstable and should
only be used..... well I cannot think of a situation when it should be
used except for accessing sessions@aol and well there is always yahoo
launch. For news and all the crap available on the main screen use
news.google.com. AOL will never be streamlined and stable and
technical support which they offer for free are told to get the member
off the phone as soon as possible - problem solved or not.
I hope this helps :)
Regards,
Ian Kenefick
http://antivirus.ik-cs.com