Is Your Computer Infected with Spyware?

A recent report says that Microsoft’s free MSRT cleaned up more than 994,000 machines of what the tool recognizes as "W32/FakeSecSen," the malware label for a broad range of bogus security program with names such as "Advanced Antivirus," "Spyware Preventer," "Ultimate Antivirus 2008" and "XPert Antivirus in its latest release.

Many times, Windows users may install the fake programs because they get duped thinking that they're real because they get ranked high in Internet search results, some rogue applications are also often secretly installed by malware that has infected a system.

Of course, none of the people who were infected with spyware knew they were infected. This meant that their computers were basically not under their own control, and that all information on their computer was vulnerable to hackers around the world.

The MSRT is updated once a month and has been responsible for cleaning up tens of millions of computers around the world. While it is free, it does have it’s limitations, and is not a complete anti-spyware tools. It does not run all of the time, to prevent new infections.

However, it is a free, once a month safety check. You will still need the other software, but this should be loaded on all Windows computers.

The MSRT cab be manually downloaded from Microsoft's Web site or via the Windows Update service.