Wired News: Nasty Malware Fouls PCs With Porn : "Judging by the many postings in newsgroups and on PC help sites, plenty of people would be happy to join Joe DelGiorno in his quest to find the programmers behind CWS, the latest and most malicious of several browser hijackers that are making some Internet users miserable.
Browser hijackers are malicious small programs that change browser settings, usually altering designated default start and search pages. But CWS is far uglier than other infamous browser hijackers such as Xupiter and Lop.
According to Merijn Bellekom, who has been tracking CWS and its many variants -- more than two dozen since CWS first appeared last summer -- CWS is 'the most complex, invisible and devious hijacker' ever programmed.
CWS-infected computers are often plagued with a constant barrage of pornography pop-up ads. A hundred or more bookmarks, some for extremely hard-core pornography websites, are often added by CWS to Internet Explorer's Favorites folder.
Almost all versions of CWS significantly slow the performance of infected computers, and some can cause the system to freeze, crash or randomly reboot. CWS also collects and transfers personal information from the infected PC. A few versions of CWS can add websites to Internet Explorer's 'trusted sites' zone, which allows those websites to install new programs on the infected PC without the computer owner's knowledge or permission. Several CWS variants are capable of automatically self-updating their programming code.
A few versions of CWS block a user's access to more than two dozen websites that offer advice on how to detect and delete spyware. Some CWS versions also disable firewall programs.
People who are familiar with computers will often check host processes information to find out what applications are running in the background on their computers. One version of CWS can be active in the system but does not appear in host processes, according to Bellekom and other sources."
Another good reason to switch to Mozilla
Browser hijackers are malicious small programs that change browser settings, usually altering designated default start and search pages. But CWS is far uglier than other infamous browser hijackers such as Xupiter and Lop.
According to Merijn Bellekom, who has been tracking CWS and its many variants -- more than two dozen since CWS first appeared last summer -- CWS is 'the most complex, invisible and devious hijacker' ever programmed.
CWS-infected computers are often plagued with a constant barrage of pornography pop-up ads. A hundred or more bookmarks, some for extremely hard-core pornography websites, are often added by CWS to Internet Explorer's Favorites folder.
Almost all versions of CWS significantly slow the performance of infected computers, and some can cause the system to freeze, crash or randomly reboot. CWS also collects and transfers personal information from the infected PC. A few versions of CWS can add websites to Internet Explorer's 'trusted sites' zone, which allows those websites to install new programs on the infected PC without the computer owner's knowledge or permission. Several CWS variants are capable of automatically self-updating their programming code.
A few versions of CWS block a user's access to more than two dozen websites that offer advice on how to detect and delete spyware. Some CWS versions also disable firewall programs.
People who are familiar with computers will often check host processes information to find out what applications are running in the background on their computers. One version of CWS can be active in the system but does not appear in host processes, according to Bellekom and other sources."
Another good reason to switch to Mozilla
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