Blocking Potentially Unsafe Downloads

Computer Repair and Consulting Service TIPS

Based on a survey of crashes submitted via the Online Crash Analysis tool in Windows XP, Microsoft concluded that roughly half of reported failures in the Windows operating system during the survey period were directly traceable to what it calls “deceptive software.” As we explain in this section, spyware, adware, and other similarly unsavory types of software represent a major security risk.

How does deceptive software end up on a computer? The simplest route is the most direct: You click a link on a webpage or in an e-mail message that leads directly to an executable file. For example, an advertisement may make extravagant or alarming claims about a free program, perhaps even embedding the link in a pop-up window that looks like a warning dialog box generated by Windows. When an unsophisticated computer user clicks the ad, the program offers to install as an ActiveX control via an Authenticode dialog box, which can easily be mistaken for an official Windows stamp of approval.

In some cases, the setup routine for one program surreptitiously installs additional programs in the background. When we installed one widely used song-swapping program in a previous version of Windows, for instance, we found that it installed four well hidden add-ons along with the main application, resulting in an increase in pop-up advertisements and changes to the way the browser handled search requests and mistyped URLs. The most vicious types of deceptive software typically attempt to exploit security holes to install themselves automatically, without your approval or even your knowledge.

It should come as no surprise that the makers of this sort of software employ all sorts of tricks to mislead, deceive, and cajole you into installing their wares, by extolling the program’s benefi ts and glossing over or omitting any mention of its undesirable behavior. For someone with a basic understanding of computer security issues, the principal security concern when browsing is to ensure (insofar as it is possible) that anything you download is safe and that any potentially undesirable behavior is fully disclosed. If you share a computer or network with unsophisticated computer users who cannot reasonably be expected to consistently reject unsafe software, your goal should be to prevent them from having to make potentially confusing choices in the first place.

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