It Says I'm Protected, But...

I have Spyware Blaster 3.2 installed on my computer, along with Ad Aware, Win Patrol, and Spybot Search and Destroy (also Norton Anti-Virus). I have run Spybot and it consistently finds Advertising.com entries, lots of them (last count was 20 over a one day period). I have made sure that Spyware Blaster protects against Advertising.com but it still gets into my computer regardless of what SB says. How can I prevent Advertising.com from getting in? Is SB saying its blocking it and somehow Advertising.com is getting through? How can I prevent this? Is one of the other programs preventing SB from working on Advertising.com?

There are probably others, but I have concentrated on Advertising.com because they seem to be the biggest offender and if there is one method of preventing them, it may work on others.

I am running on Mozilla, the latest version, and using XP. Please forgive me if this question has been asked and answered before, I did not see it in the titles.

 

Hi olympia301,

Welcome to Wilders!!!

Could you be more specific as to what the entries of advertising.com that SpyBot is finding? Are they cookies, registry entries, etc. and does Spybot provide a path? Any more details you can give will help us with your problem...

 

Hey olympia,

Along with what puff-m-d asked....just to be sure....what is the actual version # you are referring to and are you speaking of Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox ?

Also....would you attempt to find a file named registry.dat that is associated with Mozilla and post how big the file size is ?

 

I did ask it to fix problems, it tells me that nothing was done (assuming that meant it was not fixed). Please see the results below.

I am using Mozilla 1.6 not Firefox. I found registry.dat in the documents and settings area and it is 372KB big. Hope this helps.

WebTrends live: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


WebTrends live: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


WebTrends live: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


WebTrends live: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Advertising.com: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Adviva: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Adviva: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


Avenue A, Inc.: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


DoubleClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-18\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1729697498-2501954535-3646181656-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-20\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-19\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

DSO Exploit: Data source object exploit (Registry change, nothing done)
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Zones\0\1004!=W=3

Enliven: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


FastClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


FastClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


FastClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


FastClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


FastClick: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


HitBox: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)


MediaPlex: Tracking cookie (Mozilla: MozillaControl) (Cookie, nothing done)



--- Spybot - Search && Destroy version: 1.3 ---
2004-11-29 Includes\Cookies.sbi
2004-12-15 Includes\Dialer.sbi
2004-12-16 Includes\Hijackers.sbi
2004-12-15 Includes\Keyloggers.sbi
2004-05-12 Includes\LSP.sbi
2004-12-15 Includes\Malware.sbi
2004-11-29 Includes\Revision.sbi
2004-11-29 Includes\Security.sbi
2004-12-16 Includes\Spybots.sbi
2004-11-29 Includes\Tracks.uti
2004-12-15 Includes\Trojans.sbi

 

While I'm not speaking for puff-m-d....I'm fairly certain Advertising.com cookies was what was expected.

Unfortunately....the 372KB registry.dat file is possibly too large for SpywareBlaster to load.

recently said by Javacool:
"You can either delete it and allow Mozilla to recreate it (you will have to copy over your user data from your old profile folder) or you can wait for SpywareBlaster 3.3"

In this thread---> New version, no Mozilla protection

Personally I am an advocate of Privacy and Security on the NET....however....I would not have a problem at all suggesting to wait for the release of SpywareBlaster 3.3 and not be concerned with tracking cookies such as Advertising.com. There are definetly more security issues to be concerned about....IMHO

 

Sorry, quick question from Dumbo here. If you clear cookies/cache when finished browsing....then these wouldn't be there for spybot to find would they?
Buck.

 

Correct, that was what I was expecting. I do not use Mozilla, does it have any cookie handling options? If it does, you can always have your browser block these cookies.

Correct ....

 

Thank you. This has cleared up quite a few mysteries for me. I did find out where Moz allows you to manage individual cookies and block certain sites from setting cookies on your computer. FYI: Tools-Cookie Manager-Manage stored cookies-then block the sites individually that you do not want to come into your machine. I bet this will work.

Like I said, I singled out advertising.com because they were so many and persistant. I am sure that I will have to start weeding out those who also come in frequently.

I will be looking forward to SB 3.3 but (as it is free) I have to take action myself if I want to be rid of a lot of adcrap. At least SB has given me the names of the worst offenders and the info to rid myself of them with a bit of patience.

I have cleared the cache frequently but they find me, maybe this is like washing your hands but I fear they are opportunistic little buggers, just takes a nanosecond...

But again, thanks for all your help. I feel like this will prevent quite a few problems in the future and I understand the workings of my computer and it's defense mechanisms much better now.

 

Olympia,
I haven't had spybot or adaware find anything on my system for a year or so....But I religiously clear cookies and cache after any browsing. spybot does find those DSO exploits (5 of them...like you i think), but that is a bug in the spybot prog which wil be fixed on the next version apparently....I don't even fix them...just uncheck box and close. the DSO thing is nothing to worry about if you are fully patched/SP2 etc.
Cheers,
Buck.

 

I notice you are running WinPatrol, why don't you set Scotty to chew-up any cookies from sites like Advertising.com. WinPatrol is particularly useful for cookie control with I.E., so I would have expected it to work with Mozilla. Correct me if I'm wrong!

 

You are probably right. I have not played with Scotty as much as I have with the others and I should delve into his abilities to watch as he dispatches baddies.