Spyware that doesn't dial home(!?)

[valhallen]

Ok I hadn't run any kind of spyware check in a couple of months but was doing a complete clean up today and did a quick check....to be honest I didn't expect to find anything as my firewall hadn't flagged anything out of the ordinary requesting an outgoing connection

however ad-aware picked up on 22 seperate files oO
these have now been quarrantined but my question is what good is spyware when it doesn't dial home?

my understanding of spyware was that it collected information about a user before sending that information to the developers server....also I have not noticed any changes to my browser (I use Opera by default but also checked IE's settings with no change)

I double checked the allowed/blocked list(s) in my firewall but nothing seems to appear there other than those programs i recognise and expected to be there.

so what exactly is the point of this spyware - it does not dial home, I have not being experiencing pop-ups (even when using IE which doe not have a pop-up blocker) or other changes to internet settings - so what have they been doing??

v_Ln

[moxnix]

It could be cookie based and changes or adds to present cookies. Then when you connect to the site that set the cookie it would dump its data and your firewall would not trip to it.
I hace notice that Ad-Aware targets quite a few data miner cookies....is yous showing that perhaps?

[nihil]

Hi val

Try this:

http://www.winpatrol.com

Use the cookie management settings to kill the lot

Also there are "web bugs"........on a page...you can't even see them......

I have some old software that detects them, but nothing modern........amazing what sites have been infected

Good luck

[sumdumguy]

hehe. sorry v_Ln.. but if you want to block your spyware from calling home.. tell your firewall to block your port 80..

[lord_darkside_x]

also, how old were these spy wares... i know some of them wait like amonth and then send once a month.... things like that... i have never seen any longer then a month though

[valhallen]

sumdumguy >> ok will do that now

*poof*valhallen vanishes from forums*poof*



v_Ln

[sumdumguy]

v_Ln, hehehe.. I'm sorry but I just couldn't resist..
you didn't put your logical hat on today..