Think of it as spyware meets Freddy Krueger - a genre of Internet monster that hijacks your browser and, like the villain of "Nightmare on Elm Street", can't be killed.

This new "kruegerware" can steal your home page, lock you permanently to a porno site, or ship all your Google queries to a dubious ad-driven alternative.

Increasingly this type of program doesn't just wreak havoc. It can avoid detection by popular spyware programs and even if you think you've gotten rid of it, it usually comes back, like Freddy. [snip]

The "viruses" are actually processes that are tampering with Explorer, and his anti-virus program indicates they can't be deleted. He tried to clear them out manually and "they are immediately downloaded from the Internet and restored when I reopen Explorer." He's spent hours on the problem, and finally got rid of it with some highly specialized software.

Most experts think these persistent pests are only going to increase. The reason, according to Sam Curry, Computer Associates' resident security guru, is "unlike most hacking and most viruses, spyware is financially driven; people wouldn't do this if it didn't pay." [snip]

Greatsearch is a comparatively mild case. Truly gory details are chronicled at »www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html, the home page of a Dutch student Merijn Bellekom who, like Dracula's literary foe Van Helsing, has dedicated his life, or at least his spare time, to fighting immortal evil with cool technology. In this case, it is browser hijackers that send computers to the home page of a Russia-based company, Cool Web Search. Says Curry "Cool Web Search is a horrible one, with 30 different iterations, and trying to find all the tentacles when you go in can be impossible. It will leave things like registry keys that say, if these files are missing, go to thus and so a page and download them."
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Related articles published in Newsday the same day by Lou Dolinar:
How to win the spy war
Fire, stakes and silver bullets won't work. There's only one sure way to get rid of persistent spyware, including browser hijackers: Completely rebuild your operating system and software, a process that takes the better part of a day.

Applying in-between alternatives to your all-Microsoft,all-the-time world
...Of course, there's a downside to Microsoftness. Legions of hackers regard Microsoft as the Evil Empire and write scads of viruses and worms to express their displeasure. More seriously, perhaps, adware and spyware authors look at Microsoft software as an unparalleled marketing opportunity and write particularly evil programs that hijack your home page, inundate your screen with pop-ups and crash your computer.