Twenty percent of all Windows computers has been infected with a rootkit, without the owner knowing about this. Prevx scanned 725.000 Windows machines with their free online scanner, 22% of these machines were rootkitted. In October this number was only 15,6% of all scanned computers. And not only home users run risks, also firms should be warned. Out of all firms scanned in December last 14% were infected. NDT2.SYS, SROSA.SYS, UNPR.SYS, NDT2.SYS & FMTR.SYS were among the most active rootkits.
“Security software is not error-free. Loads ofl PC’s are infected, while users have up to date av- or antispyware products installed. Users do not know anything is wrong until they fully scan their systems. And even then some rootkits are not being detected. Part of the problem is full scans take too much time, and users do not want to spend this time scanning”, according to Prevx’s Mel Morris.
Well polonus thinks risk surfing and forgetting about upgrades and updates and security measures are among the main reasons for the mentioned 20% rootkitted machines. And this article is good PR for prevx.com.
thanks damian for the link…ran a scan of my desktop and laptop and both were clean accoring to the prevx tool : ???
Your CSI Scan Returned Clean!
No active infections were found on your last scan.
Well I keep this on my comp for a regular scan (under 2 min) every day. Update of CSI also possible with the downloaded free scan version. Seems to work nice alongside avast and ComodoBoClean. Have a nice day, my friend,
I would say that statement/title is absolute boll***s there is no way of verifying that and the figure is ridiculous.
Why do people go to have their system scanned, because they think that they might be infected, so the logic is flawed, you can’t transfer what they find on their site to the rest of the world.
As you come to think of it, this figure cannot be verified easily. The users that scanned decided to do so because they had a hunch of being rootkitted, what about those that did not? So questionable postulations, yes, but a good reason to get alerted to the possibility of being rootkitted anyway. I think a lot of people that read the above post, will perform the under two minutes free scan anyway. Didn’t you? Mind you, you need full admin rights for the unabridged scan! But with user’s rights only on my alternate XP account that is more secure anyway, and I use that one for surfing and webmailing etc. Take the article for what it is - so I gave it as I found it. Everybody is entitled to his or her view, and I say I feel I have to support your view on this,
I did a Prevx scan of my computer & my computer is clean as I knew it was. Some scanners will tell us we are infected even if we aren’t to get us to buy their product. The Prevx scan was honest by saying my computer is clean. I respect Prevx for the honesty.
After my scan, Prevx showed 22% of the computers scanned by Prevx were infected.
We all appreciate your vigilance but read carefully friend:
“With around fifteen thousand new users checking their PCs every day using Prevx CSI, more than 725,000 PCs have now run checks with the product. On December 1, 2007, Prevx enhanced Prevx CSI to include powerful rootkit detection and expanded the scope of its active spyware and malware detection capabilities. The result of these changes has been an increase in the number of PCs seen to have one or more active spyware, malware or rootkit programs running on them - from 15.6 percent or 1 in 6 during October 2007, to 22 percent or more than 1 in 5 today.”
They don’t say that 1 in 5 PCs has a rootkit.
Prevx CSI is a marketing tool that to me, only diminishes any opinion of Prevx that I may have previously held.
I scanned my PC with CSI (see CSI.jp) and now for only US $24.95 I can get rid of these “bad file” “active infections”.
Except these particular files are neither active or bad, nor hidden.
‘eicar.com’ we know
‘TBONUnist.exe’ is the proprietary uninstaller for the nasty (and now defunct) TrustSoft Best Offers Network Toolbar
I can easily delete them from their “hidden” location on my Desktop any time I want to.
Thanks for the link, Polonus. Just for the h311 of it, did the download and scan. As I suspected, my computer is clean according to Prevx CSI. The only thing I noticed was that the download (2 mins) and scan took a total of 11 mins.
I agree with you that the way the free Prevx CSI “adverts” itself to be bought in case of an infection is a bit questionable, at least the scanning tool is free and not bogus. You can uninstall it quite easily, the scanner does not weigh too heavy on your cycles, and the alerted for riskware can be easily cleansed in another way or manually. Thanks for your feedback on the subject, and I will be more precise the next time to state that the scanner is not free as where cleansing is concerned, but there are alternatives for that functionality. Could others tell what kind of rootkit detection they have installed, or running?
I have to agree with Vladimyr, this is just a hook to try and get you to buy the full product and this kind of marketing (you have a headache here’s pill, that will be $24.95) has the same effect on me to think less of prevx than I did before this post.
Hell there are even some programs on spywarewarrior.com for over egging the pudding and offering to clean up for a fee. I’m not saying that prevx is rogue, just that I don’t like these marketing methods that over hype the problem.
???