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New Ad Attacks

Ads and adware have a new way to get on your PC: via music and video files. We show how they do it and how to stop them.

Andrew Brandt and Eric Dahl

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Protect Yourself

Illustrations by Joe Zeff.

Illustration: Joe Zeff
Prevent bogus files laden with adware or spyware from infiltrating your PC, by taking the following steps.

Change Windows Media Player settings to give you more warning. Select Tools, Options, Privacy and turn off Acquire licenses automatically for protected content. In the future, a dialog box will warn you each time a protected file attempts to get a license and will display the URL from which it will request the license. If you have doubts about the site, choose "No." Changing this setting in Windows Media Player affects any other players you use that support Microsoft's DRM scheme.

Set your browser to, at a minimum, prompt you prior to downloading any ActiveX controls. (In IE, choose Tools, Internet options, Security and click Custom Level.)

Use a pop-up blocker. It won't prevent the initial ad or the first IE window spawned, but it will prevent further pop-ups from appearing on your PC.

Turn on automatic Windows updates to make sure that IE holes are plugged quickly.

Run a firewall, and monitor outgoing and incoming Internet requests.

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