Scaremongering over Spyware?

Dynamoo writes "The BBC is reporting that PCs in the UK are infected with over 20 pieces of spyware on average. A frightening statistic, if it is to be believed. In fact, the figures come from Webroot - an anti-spyware firm with a commercial interest in playing up the spyware threat." From the article: "In Poland, 867 of every 1,000 domestic PCs have been infected by trojans, unsolicited programs that can allow remote users to control the machine. It is this international reach that concerns those in authority trying to combat the spread of spyware. "

More Information

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

If the FTC gathers evidence of a crime, it can - and does - launch prosecutions. Last month two companies were ordered to hand back more than $2m (£1.14m) garnered through selling fake anti-spyware products.

More information regarding those settlements can be found here [ftc.gov].

20 Spyware Packages?

[bmo]

Hah!

DOUBLE HAH!

Them: "Dude, my computer is slow and it's got some sort of popup that comes on when I turn it on"

Me: "You're infected"

Them: "But how? I don't go to any porn sites...." yadda yadda yadda.

And when I get to the sick peecee, I see that not only does it have _one_ piece of malware, but it barely boots from the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of evil packages all fighting for control of the poor machine.

It's a losing battle. No, it's not scare mongering. It's reality.

--
BMO

Re:I could easily believe that.

[walt-sjc]

You have: 10,489 viruses on your computer

I've seen similar, although generally it's ONE virus infecting 10,489 files...

EASILY believable

[Short Circuit]

Here at GRCC [grcc.edu], Computer Club runs a monthly event called PC Clinic where we fix machines for free. We've serviced more than 60 machines over the course of the three events we've run. We easily average more than 100 pieces of spyware on each machine we test.

Three or four machines had over 1000[sic] pieces of spyware, and one machine had over three thousand pieces, plus several variants of either Sasser or Sobig. (I forget which...that machine came in the door on our first day.)

We don't just service the machines of the elderly...we get a lot of uninformed college students and their parents, as well.

If you have any questions, drop me an email. I'd be happy to answer them. I'll respond to /. comments later, after class. :)

Then look at other studies

[sremick]

There are plenty of other more-neutral studies that say basically the same thing.

Late in 2004 some studies were done that were pretty thorough. I know it's kind of old now but I can't imagine things have gotten any better.

A study was done by AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance. Some of their findings:

6% of users thought they had a virus currently on their computer. A scan revealed that actually 19% of all the users had viruses.

71% of those with antivirus software thought that it updated weekly or daily. However, a scan revealed that only 33% of all the users had actually updated their antivirus within the last week.

53% thought they had spyware on their computer. A scan revealed that in truth, 80% of all the users had spyware.

References:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/25/HNaolsur vey_1.html [infoworld.com]
http://www.staysafeonline.info/pdf/NCSA-AOLIn-Home StudyRelease.pdf [staysafeonline.info]
http://www.staysafeonline.info/pdf/safety_study_v0 4.pdf [staysafeonline.info]

Another study by Dell estimated that nearly 90% of all desktop computers are infected somehow, with 1 out of 5 calls to Dell tech-support being virus/spyware related. Most people aren't even aware that their computers have been compromised:

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php? content_id=71662 [financialexpress.com]
http://www.webpronews.com/news/ebusinessnews/wpn-4 5-20041015DellsSpywareSurvey.html [webpronews.com]

Spyware scaremongering == business model

[ChiliJ]

Mark Russinovich of sysinternals has an interesting experiment here [sysinternals.com].

Re:True number or not, way too common..

[Ravatar]

Use the symantec removal tool to get rid of NIS 2005. It's available on their website.

The reason it exhibits this behavior is because otherwise, it would be WAY too easy for viruses to disable antivirus if it didn't fight back.