Excerpt of “New Trojan program squashes adware” by Paul Roberts on ComputerWorld:
A new Trojan horse program that attacks and removes troublesome advertising software, known as adware, is circulating on the Internet, according to antivirus company Symantec Corp.
The program, called Downloader.Lunii, was discovered on Monday. When run, it attempts to kill off computer processes and delete files used by common adware programs like Powerscan and BargainBuddy. However, Lunii isn’t entirely benevolent. Like other Trojan horse programs, it also modifies the configuration of Microsoft Windows machines and attempts to download files from a remote location, Symantec warned.
This Trojan horse propiates via email. I have maintained for sometime now that executable programs have no business being sent via email. If they were blocked automatically by mail servers, the number of virus, worm, and trojan incidents would drop significantly. It may sound heavy-handed, but this is a very easy solution to implement and is very effective.