I am sorry if this is the incorrect forum to post this in, but I could not find any other places where this would be appropriate, so I decided to post it here.
Recently I’ve had an encounter with a commercial spy software application, namely WinSpy, used malignantly to gain access to my sensitive information, including usernames and passwords. Though this software’s manufacturer claims to have good intentions, if it is to be used in such a fashion, I believe it should be detected and deleted by Avast!
My encounter was only with the trial version, and it was quite hard to manually delete; I’m not totally certain if it has been removed, however I have regained access to Ad-Aware, which it blocked to stop me from detecting it. The only way I found it was its rather conspicuous icon in the taskbar stating that it was a trial version (and very intelligently giving me its name : ), as well as a slight but noticeable slowdown. I can only imagine what would happen if a “Registered” version were to have managed its way onto my computer; I probably would not have detected it, as Avast! did not catch it.
Avast is an antiVIRUS program, not an antiMONITORING/
KEYLOGGER program . I read the front page of their site
in the link that you provided and the info there should
"alert" people to avoid products like this. However,
parents are interested in "monitoring" their children that
they would put privacy-invading programs like this on
their computers. To see if it is ALL OFF, I recommend you
run a HijackThis program scan; if you want a HJT Expert
to review the scan results, ask on the "unofficial"
Ad-Aware Support Forums at www.landzdown.com .
Well in the way in which WinSpy works, it is to be classified as spyware, and it also could be classified as a genuine trojan, so it should not be on a machine. It can seriously slow down your system, and harm it.
Why read here: http://www.auditmypc.com/process/winsys.asp
You have a point here, and fairly so that some AV products flag it as malware: http://www.symantec.com.au/avcenter/venc/data/spyware.atwinspy.html
In the above link also removal instructions can be found.
“You would like to educate your children to use computers safely and securely, so they are trained to be responsible users later, not monitor them with spyware like trojans to loose their cooperation later in life”. But that credo is entirely my opinion.
Thanks for responding. Normally I would have classified it as spyware and simply run Ad-Aware to remove it; however, it locked down access to antispyware applications, and also made itself extremely hard to detect manually. I successfully managed to remove it last night, but it was a real pain in the neck. For some reason, the trojan did not detect Avast! as a threat (and thus did not lock it down); as such, I asked here that the file is detected as a threat so it does not cause damage to others’ computers.
), as well as a slight but noticeable slowdown. I can only imagine what would happen if a “Registered” version were to have managed its way onto my computer; I probably would not have detected it, as Avast! did not catch it.