Security Tool HijackThis Goes Open Source

wiredmikey writes "The popular free security tool HijackThis has been open sourced by its owner, Trend Micro. The tool scans systems to find settings that may have been modified by spyware, malware or other programs that have wiggled their way onto a system and caused problems. Downloaded over 10 million times, HijackThis generates reports to help users analyze and fix an infected or problem computer. But the tool is not designed for novices – and doesn't actually determine what's good or bad. That's up to you, but it is a good way to keep an eye on things and possibly locate anomalies that may have been missed by other security products. Trend Micro warns that if you don't know what you're doing, it's probably not a good idea to make any changes to your computer settings and system files. Trend Micro acquired the tool from creator Merijn Bellekom in 2007, and has offered it for free ever since, but now is making the code available to the public. The code, originally written in Visual Basic, is now officially available at Sourceforge here."

Not just for helpdesk and your family

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Hijacjk This ain't jsut for helpdesk monkeys; we use it constantly in Enterprise software testing. Server works fine, Client works fine, OS checks out, software ain't working. Run HT and find the culprit pretty quickly, and when your customers are telcos and banks doing short-cycle upgrades for occasionally legit reasons, your on-site guys need to find fast answers.

Re:Not just for helpdesk and your family

[ReallyEvilCanine]

I love SysInternals and have the original Winternals files on an old 3.2 SCSI-II somewhere (or maybe buried somewhere in a /win//utils/OS/win directory on my server). Run as many SysInternals as you want and find me the BHO that's preventing an ActiveX control from passing info through a hidden helper browser window. You can sit all day with Proc* looking for that. I want to find a bad thread or spin or memleak, yeah, SysInternals all the way.

HT is by no means dead; you can spend a lot of extra time putting a screw through a board with a hammer but a screwdriver is probably the better and more efficient choice for the job.