Hi Jimbo,
Cookies are part of a debate of sorts. Do they do bad things? Usually not,
but they can be configured too in exceptional cases? Do they cause damage?
Not usually. Do they reveal your inner most thoughts to people? Depends on
where you surf.
I see it more of a privacy issue as opposed to security. I've no idea what
side of the fence this program will come down on, but I wouldn't feel bad if
it gave the user the opportunity to wash out cookies in a selective manner.
I look to the value of MWAS as a preventive, proactive tool. I routinely run
scans on my pc's at home and in the office, and get 0 hits. I like it like
that.
Folks, Please Don't do the following at home:
On the flip side, I was informed of an 'interesting' site today, and went to
it with a test bunny machine which was NOT running MWAS. I did a couple of
not too bright things such as allow popups and accept an Active X control. I
next disconnected from the network, tho I was joined to the domain to start
with, installed MWAS and rebooted into safe mode. Once there I noted about
8 BHO that were now attached to IE that weren't there before. I noted
several new entries in start up. I then started a full scan from Safe
Mode, and went out for coffee. When I returned, MWAS was waiting with a
report about 24 items, and over 200 file and registry entries that were
funky. I whacked them all, booted back into normal and examined the machine.
All was reported as well. All looked good.
Not trusting bad guys, I reimaged the machine.
So, yes, I thinks MWAS works. I think it works pretty well, especially for a
Beta. IMVHO, the 615 release is much more robust than prior builds.
Ron Chamberlin
MS-MVP
