You could use Process Guard's protection to protect SSM As you are allowed to protect one process in the free version.
The free version is really a demo of the full version, with some useful functionality to make it worthwhile - and also works as a compatibility test for your system. Consider purchasing the full version for a lot better protection
The free version of PG offers quite a lot of capabilities, but if nothing else you can simply use it to protect your favourite security program (such as a firewall) to prevent it from being terminated, suspended, modified or otherwise attacked by other processes - a capability you won't find in any other programs, freeware, shareware or otherwise.
