Our PC has been infected with spyware. God I hate that stuff and I really resent the time I have to spend running anti-virus programs, adware and spybot removal, installing firewalls, updating all of this every few days and STILL find that despite all of these precautions, we have been invaded.

I'm sure there is a special corner of Hell reserved for those who write and distribute this stuff. Right next to those who send out SPAM!

While reading up about what to do, I came across this article

The current time your average unprotected PC running Windows XP, fresh out of the box, will last uninfected once it's connected to the internet is only 20 minutes! That figure is half that of what it was a year ago.

As the SANS Institute notes, 20 minutes is not long enough to update your Windows PC before it is too late. If you take a new PC out of the box, power it up then connect it to the Internet, only a few people will know enough to immediately head over to Windows Update and get the latest patches from Microsoft. Then reboot. Oh, and don't leave out the latest anti-virus updates either. Gotta have those. And don't forget Windows XP Service Pack 2.

And users are supposed to download all this in less than 20 minutes?

Forget it. We all know what really happens. Most people start up their computer and begin reading email.

And soon enough, that new Windows computer is spewing out email ads for offshore casinos, and SUPERLOW!!! mortgage rates, and \/1@gra and (1@li5, and God knows what else.

And it took just 20 minutes.

Well, we've rebotted, manually cleaned the stuff individually and spent countless hours trying to fight it, but have to admit defeat. It is only getting worse and now our computer had been hijacked by some stupid site that has crippled it and won't let me go to any other sites.

We had to call in expert help. I won't bore you with the details, but after finding half a dozen trojan horses and 850 infected files, he has nuked the machine and re-installed Windows XP again. Plus beefed up the security.

It's not been a happy experience.

And our digital camera is still AWOL.

And it's windy and rainy.

Not happy!