What can I do to protect myself?

There are several things users can do to avoid getting infected by spyware. The first is to be very selective about what software you install from the internet. If you don’t know and trust the site where the software comes from, don’t install it. Don’t install search assistants, or internet optimizers. These are inherently useless and cause problems. The second thing you can do is to stay on top of your Microsoft Updates. In the tools menu of Internet Explorer there is an option for “Windows Update”. We recommend that you go to this site on a regular basis and install all critical updates. This will help considerably with many things, including spyware. If you are running Windows XP then we strongly recommend that you update to XP SP2. It has considerable improvements relating to spyware protection. There are also some applications that you can install that provide a level of protection. The newest generation of personal firewalls such as McAfee and Symantec offer a degree of protection. Unfortunately they can be somewhat cumbersome and hard to configure correctly. They also can have such a large overhead that they can have a significant effect on performance, especially with older systems. A good compromise is something that is focused on Spyware. Most recently we have been working with Microsoft’s Spyware Removal Tool. It appears to both be very effective in removing most spyware and it also works well in actively blocking new spyware. We have had a very good success rate with regard to keeping systems spyware free when XP SP2 and MS Spyware tool are used together. Note: Microsoft’s Anti Spyware Tool does not work on older operating systems such as Windows 98 and ME

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