Oregon spyware story

6th September 2005

KGW channel 8 found me online as an internet consultant, and I’ve agreed to help them with a spyware story that will air in Portland in November 2005. We begin filming next Tuesday morning.

This weekend, in preparation for the demonstration, I’m finding that right out of the box, a new PC comes with fairly current Windows updates and it is warning me and blocking harmful things. I’ve gotten no detectable worms, trojans, viruses etc. “accidentally” and i’m pretty impressed.

Compared with a year ago, when I got MS Blaster on a new PC in under 90 seconds connected to the internet, and spyware infections just by visiting the wrong website, that shows Microsoft is making good progress.

There doesn’t seem to be a way to just go to the wrong search result and get infected accidentally without triggering various IE warings regarding Active X and popups etc.

Of course, install the wrong “free software” and ignore the “active X warning, and all bets are off. But that’s not really Microsofts fault…

the moral of this story? Do your Windows updates! They’re free!