Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day - Gizmodo Comments

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

Worf — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 17:54:55 EST

I dunno, my spam has dropped considerably from 1200+ a day to just over 800. When the weekend hits, it's normally around 1000 or so.

If anything, SP2 helps by making it possible to get updates without getting pwned before Windows Update actually loads...

Ah, the spyware will be back, so it's a nice lull...

Worf

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

RiceBandit — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 16:20:24 EST

Then again, these same statistics probably spiked just after this article posted...

RiceBandit

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

dfault1 — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 08:08:16 EST

Good call EagleEyez. I do the same thing for my family members computers when I see them over the holidays.

dfault1

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

simmo — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 22:03:09 EST

It is a hope of mine that the increase in users correlates with the increase in knowledge about security of their computers. This may not be happening now but maybe sometime in the future.

simmo

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

drgonzo2k2 — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:19:58 EST

Yeah, I'd definitely say some of it is from the technically inclined members of the family returning home for the holidays. I cleaned up my parents' computer, and it had just over 1100 pieces of spyware/adware. Like Plasmafire, I also installed Ad-Aware and Sb S&D a long time ago, and they hadn't been ran or updated once. While cleaning out their e-mail I found several attachments with names like "funny_picture.exe" Unfortunately they feel the need to read, open the attachment of, and then forward on every forward they get. When I got there their computer was not useable at all. There were porno adds within 30 seconds of booting the computer, and opening IE caused about 10 different pop-ups. Maybe one day they'll learn.

drgonzo2k2

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

Plasmafire — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 20:32:06 EST

I Call BS on this one, I just spent the last 4 hours eliminating trojan viruses on my parent's computer. Then never listen to me, I tell them to Run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy on a weekly basis and they haven't run it once since I installed it 9 months ago. Christmas Eve the Viruses took over, they were one massive pain to kill, several had to be killed repeatedly, found almost 100 trojan viruses on their computer.

Plasmafire

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

IceDreamer — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:01:36 EST

I wonder what the effects of Vista will be on the number of infected computers in the coming months.... Maybe, hopefully we'll see a drop because of Microsofts new OS.

IceDreamer

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

MrRSTEELE — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:55:02 EST

Couldn't this also be do to the earthquake that shut down most of Asia's Internet access due to the 6 undersea cables needing repair?

MrRSTEELE

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

DRoberts — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:43:36 EST

@ EagleEyez

I was about to say the same thing, as I had to play tech support for my family, including finally getting them set up with high speed Internet access.

DRoberts

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

Blake Williams — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:14:42 EST

good point

Blake Williams

Huge Decline in Bot-Infected PCs on Christmas Day

EagleEyez — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 16:08:47 EST

Mightn't this also be a result of tech-savvy folk going home for the holidays? I know that when I went to visit my family, I ended up installing ant-virus and anti-adware/spyware software on at least three machines because family members were complaining that they were all "too slow."

EagleEyez