A pig in my pooter

One thing I've taken pride of is that I keep my machine crapware-free by following a few basic rules like keeping my Norton, Spybot S&D, and AdAware updated, mainly. And running preventive scans regularly. So imagine my surprise when, while doing a routine scan this morning, Spybot tells me I've got something called Torpig. Damage control mode kicks in and I google the name, thinking in the background that it may be somehow related to TOR and, thus, a false alarm. For those not in the know TOR stands for The Onion Router, a free IP masking service that my Azureus frequently connects to.

Surprise surprise. Torpig happens not to be a false alarm. It's a passworrd stealer trojan. Bad. According to Panda's website, "It needs an attacking user's intervention in order to reach the affected computer." Badder. Only scenario I can think of here is a bugged webpage. The kind that are displayed when you open a SPAM email. My bad. I've been getting cocky and actually opening some SPAM emails lately. That's gotta stop.

So Spybot offers to clean it up after restart. No, thanks. Spybot is a great tool but its clean-on-restart feature can take forever. I dig in my toolchest (no, not THAT toolchest, Sammi) and find what I was looking for: KillBox. This little piece of software by an unassuming fellow Canuckian does a great job of removing anything -including executables attached to running processes- on reboot. I set the parameters, reboot the box, and Torpig is history. Woot!!

The moral? Do not open SPAM, even if your pooter is safe. The lesson learned? I kick booty. Those dunces at EE (and the other dunce at ERT) don't know what they're missing.