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Google Ads Double Click – Spyware?

January 9, 2009

Technology

Trend Micro’s PC-cillin Says it’s So

trendgooglespywareAccording to Trend Micro’s PC-Cillin, every website that hosts Google ads from their Double Click network is hosting spyware.

Should I just uninstall all my browsers now? :-o

This site (NYTimes) for example invokes the “Dangerous” warning.

Say it aint so.

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Update: Trend Micro advise this action (I’ll go with the flow):

Boot computer in Safe Mode with Networking.

[STEP 1] Run Disk Cleanup
[STEP 2] Run a scan in HijackThis.
[STEP 3] Reboot computer in normal mode and turn off the system restore.

Observe if the same issue will occur.

I’ll let you know.

Update 2: The above was run (an expanded Step 2 is shown below), but the problem still exists.  I’ve bounced it back to Trend Micro.

Run a scan in HijackThis. Check the following items below if they are still present and then hit the Fix button below the HIJACKTHIS window:
O2 – BHO: AskBar BHO – {201f27d4-3704-41d6-89c1-aa35e39143ed} – C:\Program Files\AskBarDis\bar\bin\askBar.dll
O3 – Toolbar: Ask Toolbar – {3041d03e-fd4b-44e0-b742-2d9b88305f98} – C:\Program Files\AskBarDis\bar\bin\askBar.dll
O23 – Service: ASKService – Unknown owner – C:\Program Files\AskBarDis\bar\bin\AskService.exe

Resolved: “Tristan E. Smythe Jr” [I love the stages names they use at Trend :-) ] gave me a free uprade to Trend Micro Internet Security 2009 – problem solved!  Obviously you’ll need to log a support case with Trend to ensure your serial number is elligible for the upgrade.

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    About Justin Moss

    An information and engineering technologist. Unabashedly opinionated, open-minded and an oft overthinker. Born Sydney Australia, home of the 'Southerly Buster'

    View all posts by Justin Moss →

    7 Responses to “Google Ads Double Click – Spyware?”

    1. Natasha Says:
      January 10, 2009 at 1:08 am

      It’s not as bad as Internet Explorer asking you if you trust content from the publisher “Microsoft”.

    2. John Lee Says:
      January 11, 2009 at 2:24 pm

      This is very annoying. TM Internet Security reports the same thing. I am tempted to add googleads.g.doubleclick.net to my trusted list just to stop the constant alerts. What are you planning to do?

      Regards…JL

    3. justinmoss Says:
      January 11, 2009 at 8:38 pm

      Hi John,

      I figured that adding “googleads.g.doubleclick.net” to my Trusted list might have been tantamount to sticking my head in the sand – considering that Trend’s product are normally very reliable (granted though, their Spyware detection seems a bit overzealous at times). I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time an ad serving company delivery spyware or malware, would it …

      So, instead, I took the issue up with Trend Support. They’ve asked me for the usual truck load of logs and dumps, which I submitted yesterday.

      I’ll post an update here once they resolved the issue.

      j.

    4. John Lee Says:
      January 12, 2009 at 1:14 am

      Thanks for taking the lead in resolving this annoying problem. Hopefully TM post an update soon. I will be patient.

      Regards…JL

    5. John Lee Says:
      January 15, 2009 at 11:02 am

      Justin:
      The alerts have stopped on my PC. What about yours?

      JL

    6. justinmoss Says:
      January 16, 2009 at 11:15 am

      Refer update above (problem still remains).

    7. justinmoss Says:
      January 17, 2009 at 2:24 am

      Updated and solved. See “Resolved” in main post above.

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