detect spyware installed by husband?

Question

My husband recently admitted to installing Spector Spyware on my PC - he says it is now off, but I have no way of confirming this. What can I use that will scan my PC to detect this sort of spyware? i.e. Sneakily installed and not via adware/internet. This particular spyware took snapshots of my screen at regular intervals, used keystroke monitoring and also alerted him whenever I sent/received an e-mail. Please help. Thanks

Answer 1

I think what you need is either a private computer, or a divorce. Your husband is obviously a psycho.

Look through the add/remove programs list and remove anything suspicious. Also look through the programs folders.

You could also format the hard drive and re-install windows. Then you can install only the programs you want and be sure there are no sneaky programs lurking in the background.

Answer 2

There are a 3 tools that I would recommend and also that you should run them all on your machine to get rid of this spyware.

1. Adaware from Lavasoft
2. Spybot S&D
3. Microsoft Windows Defender Beta

(Symantec or Norton are also useful)

After they declare your PC clean, there is something else which I propose. Look for a file KeyHook(s).dll as

C:>Windows>System32>KeyHooks.dll

Also look for a file patch.exe in our C: drive (delet it)

If nothing satisfies you than take a backup of your data and delete some files like boot.ini, so you can have a fresh installation of windows (and this time make sure he does not installs the spyware)

Answer 3

It's a slippery slope at best but the bottom line is that it's a company computer provided for company business. I'm not a legal expert but I don't think there is a reasonable expectation of privacy when you are using an employers computer, especially in the workplace. I keep all my personal stuff on my portable hard drive and a jump drive. I do create PowerPoint presentations and other things as part of my job and I keep a copy of those on my portable hard drive. But I don't have any work related stuff on my laptop. I stopped using the internet on the company computer too when they installed tracking software. Of course they announced they were doing it first. I just take my laptop to work now and use it for personal email. Several of us chipped in and bought a wireless router and everybody takes turns buying internet access by the week. Now everybody is happy. It's a little different for me though because everyone here works two weeks on / two weeks off. We are at a remote oilfield on Alaska's North Slope so certain "exceptions" are allowed for family communication, etc. But I still will not use the company computer for personal stuff. I just won't give them anything to point a finger at. Although I used to use the daylights out of the company's multiple T1 connections :-)

Answer 4

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Answer 5

Are you willing to leave him because if my girlfriend (don't have a current girlfriend) ever did that, that would be the end of that relationship, plain and simple.

Who knows what else he put on there and even if you scanned with every spyware scanner and virus scanner and keylogger scanner in the world that would still not guarantee 100% removal so your best option is (if you think he has done something else) to format your drive and reinstall Windows. I didn't say it was easy, I said it was the BEST option, in this case.

I find myself asking this question, don't answer it but ask yourself, did you ever do anything to warrant this type of observation? Not that you did and not that you didn't but I don't have the advantage of his perspective as well. I'm not going to go there, I think I'm just going to stop talking now.

Answer 6

Alison, here are some links:

If you use Norton anti-virus, then you should be able to remove it by going here:

http://www.symantec.com/smb/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2003-080715-0321-99&tabid=3

Here are a couple of other downloads that will remove it:

http://www.spywaredb.com/remove-spector/

http://www.spywareremove.com/removeSpector.html

If you use one of these downloads to remove it, then he won't be able to track you. After removing it, just UN-install the program you used to remove it. When downloading, save it to your desktop, install, do your thing, then go to Start, Control panel, add/remove programs, remove the program YOU installed and delete the desktop folder and empty your recycle bin. DONE!
Then, delete your internet explorer history and cookies:
On IE explorer, go to Tools, internet options, on Temp Internet Files, delete files and delete cookies. On history, clear history.
I'd also change my 'days to keep pages in history' to 0 or 1, just for future. Now you're REALLY done!

Good luck!

Polly

Answer 7

For free online scans- try BitDefender or Panda Active Scan. To download a spyware-removal program try Ad-Aware.

Answer 8

You have far more serious issues with him than this bit of nonsense. It speaks to deception. It speaks of profound discourtesy and disrespect. It dehumanizes and marginalizes you as little else can. One would suggest immediate marital counseling, but I strongly suspect he will either refuse or he will not cooperate or be truthful once there. Therefore, you need to decide whether life with him is worth being treated so poorly or whether you're better off without him. I'd suggest the latter...

Answer 9

Well he used this to monitor what you are doing on the computer so he may have set some speculations on the program and to remove it...if you want to just go to your control panel after you click on start if you have Windows XP or you can just go to my computer and Control Panel should be on the left side in a box now click on add or remove programs and if you see that specific Program that he installed just select it and click remove and if it denies your access then you are going to have to log on to his account and do it from their just follow the steps on removing the program then after your done empty your recycling bin so he can't get the program back.....Good Luck

Answer 10

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