ComputerWorld - Defensive Computing: Different approaches to removing malware

April 16, 2009
By Michael Horowitz

Malware (malicious software) seems to be getting worse. No surprise, since there's big money in it as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123976230407519659.html

Typical scams aim to scare unsophisticated users with phony warnings that their computer is infected with a virus. Conveniently, the warning is followed by prompts to install software to remove the virus. Victims pay for the phony antivirus software and end up infected to boot.

The term for this is scareware. A recent Microsoft report found one particular scareware program installed on 4.4 million computers. Scareware is not something that Vista's UAC can prevent since the user invites it in. Among the scareware programs are Antivirus'09, Personal Antivirus, WinDefender 2008, P Antispyware 09, WinPC Antivirus, RapidAntivirus, WinAntivirus, XP Antivirus and DriveCleaner.

So, many people need malware removal. But how?

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