World of spyware

Got your own spyware horror story?

It was an exciting day when my brother and I bought World of Warcraft. We couldn't wait to play one of the best games ever created. Some weeks later, our dream game led us to nightmare territory.

My brother had become a more active Internet surfer since he started playing World of Warcraft and soon became the victim of the feared SpySheriff malware. Even then, he decided not to do anything about it, until things got out of control. Two days later, a massive array of malware had infected his computer: Trojans, worms, desktop hijackers, you name it. It was only then that he decided to tell me what was going on.

So I started with the basics: Ad-Aware, BitDefender Free Edition, Avast Home Edition, HijackThis, and Norton Anti-Virus. Fortunately, most of the scans detected malware (about 225, if I remember correctly) and almost all were successfully removed, with the exception of a Trojan and a desktop hijacker. So I surfed the Web to see how to get rid of these pesky things.

Apparently the desktop hijacker was of a particular breed that was very hard to remove. Fortunately, I found out about a program made specifically to destroy Smitfraud desktop hijacker. But the Trojan showed resilience to everything I threw at it. Smitfraud kept installing other malware and soon I was forced to do a complete reinstall of Windows XP.

The good part is that no data got lost in the process because my brother's computer also runs Linux, and I managed to get the important stuff out of the Windows partition before wiping it clean. After all we went through, I'd like to tell my bro that security is not just about software; it's more of a culture.

-Pablo
Mexico City, Mexico

Reply from the Download.com editors:

Your story makes it clear that the culture of computing security parallels the culture of World of Warcraft (WoW) and other massive multiplayer online games. Instead of fighting a virtual Horde of trolls, orcs, and the undead, we're fighting the real malicious code of Trojans, viruses, and traitorous rogue antispyware programs (see: SpySheriff's wicked pedigree.)

Ad-Aware, BitDefender, and HijackThis are part of your personal Alliance of firewalls, scanners, and removal programs. You gain experience and reputation points using them and other top-rated software to battle malware raids. Like WoW, you may be able to foil smaller monsters on your own, using common sense to avoid the traps of dangerous links and downloads. Other times you'll need to collaborate with members of the Alliance, using scanners, removal, and cleaning software to vanquish the enemy.

As you advance, rather than upgrading your weapons and armor while developing your character, high-achieving players in the "World of Spyware" consistently upgrade their antispyware and antivirus programs' definitions, and implement effective real-time protection software to complement excellent freeware.

Based on his misadventures into the world of malware, I'm sure your brother will enthusiastically improve his security gameplay.