The Security Mentor

Remember when I said that you could protect yourself from a lot of spyware and other vicious stuff by staying out of the "bad neighborhoods" on the Web?

Even that doesn't work any more.

There's a news site for geeks called "Slashdot" (the name is funny if you have a geek sense of humor) where I get a lot of my news. A user there who calls himself "Hamster Lover" and who probably knows how to protect himself online wrote (with real words in place of the dashes):

I am in much the same situation as yourself, fully patched, running Ad Aware and Spybot regularly with Javascript OFF.

I was researching information on the Roman Empire and was directed by Google to a great web site. About five minutes in I notice a small pop up window that when maximized displayed a blank window. The router, modem and network lights start to blink and the hard drive begins to churn. Ugh, I realize I am the victim of drive by spyware installation on of all things a web site on Ancient Rome. If I can't protect myself given all the above safeguards, how the hell is the average person going to?

It took an hour or two of work with Ad Aware, Spybot and Hijackthis to remove the five or six pieces of spyware s--- that installed from an innocuous web site. I am well and truly tired of this bulls---, Firefox here I come...

As of today, there is to the best of my knowledge no way to use Internet Explorer safely on the Web at large.