Losing the spyware war

Reading the PC Doctor's blog about reinstalling Windows rather than bothering with spyware makes me reflect on how we've lost the spyware war.

A year ago, I would seriously doubt the competence of any tech who zapped and reinstalled more than three machines a year. But midway through last year, we realised we were losing. The infections were getting harder to remove.

Spyware's a frustrating, soul destroying part of the business. Now we're finding our tools and procedures aren't working. The spyware guys have won.

We're now in the reformat camp. If you have spyware on a machine we visit and we can't wipe it in the first hour, we recommend reformatting. So you better have your passwords, system disks and data backup.