This is a guest post by Malwarebytes security researcher Pieter Arntz who takes a look back at the early 2000s when he was not employed in the cybersecurity industry but was part of a group of expert helpers that volunteered their time to help victims remove adware and malware from computers.
This story takes us back to 2003 and for a better understanding, you would need to be aware of the fact that the cybersecurity industry back then was shaped very differently from today.
Antivirus (AV) software dealt with malware such as viruses and worms, dedicated Anti-Trojan software focused entirely on Trojans, and computer infections such as adware, browser hijackers, dialers, spyware, and ad injectors were for the most part not detected by mainstream security software.
Instead, you needed to use dedicated anti-adware programs like Ad-Aware or Spybot to tackle these infections.
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