Beware Bridge Spyware in Pirated Illustrator CS2

[NFAY]

And no, I don't go around buying pirated software. This was sold to me as LEGAL (I asked pointedly and have it all in writing) software .

I realize that most people on this board will already have there software in place, but for anyone who is about to purchase CS2 (or possibly other software in the Suite) it might be a good idea to read about this.

I put the whole story of a VERY long day on the web in hopes of saving someone trouble.

This has nothing to do with software downloaded from the Adobe site! I have, after writing this, found a couple other mentions of it. So please be careful.

[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.faystudios.com/visualastrology/bridgespyware.cfm [/url]

 

[parkerbrown]

Could you please post some links to the "other mentions" of this problem that you sited?

Thanks.

(sorry to hear about your problem -that stinks)

 

[parkerbrown]

Hang on, just what is this "Bridge Spyware" that you speak of? Is that the name of the spyware apps, or the people responsible?

Is it just a co-incidence that CS2 already contains software called Adobe Bridge?

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/bridge.html

Can you please clear this up? Thanks.

 

[parkerbrown]

Also, are you on PC or Mac?

 

[NFAY]

Sorry about the "other mentions". There are some but it was a VERY long day in a VERY long week and blocking things out was at the top of my priority list. I imagine that if you look hard enough you will find mentions for yourself. I did not keep track of them. There isn't a LOT about this on the web for some reason. Panda says it is not very prevelent and mostly in SE Asia if I remember correctly, so that might be why there isn't much about it on the English websites.

And re the "bridge" thing. Yes, it is a very strange coincidence. In the virus/spyware files of several companies (Trend, Panda, etc.) I found mentions of bridge spyware that was NOT in the registry and in theory you could simply delete the dll file. This was NOT that bridge spyware that I had (have). OR it may be a version that lives in the registry rather than just a directory on the hard drive. Panda Called it Spyware\Bridge Spyware if that is any help.

It sits in the registry. And it STAYS in the registry. When you uninstall CS2 (both the pirated version that I thought was legal AND the CS2 Tryout that I was using while waiting for my new-never-been-touched-by-human-hands-from-Amazon copy) the sypware alerts go away. BUT the minute that you reinstall (I tried this a couple of times out of curiosity) it comes back (or at least shows up in a spyware scan at Panda).

Running out of room will continue in another post.

 

[NFAY]

Continued --

But it seem like once I uninstalled the pirated CS2 that even though Panda says I have the spyware still, it is not DOING anything (or at least that is my feeling).

It no longer is slowing down my machine (not just in CS2) to molasses spead OR making my Internet connection slow (I am on 3000 Mbps cable.

So, I THINK that it somehow needs the offending pirated copy of CS2 also installed in order to do it work.

Panda says it simply sends your browsing preferences to companies (unnamed), hence, I assume generating junk mail. It is not a keystroke spyware or anything like that.

That is pretty much all I know.

 

[NFAY]

I am on a PC, WINDOWS XP Home although there was no mention in anything I read that this was ONLY a Windows problem.

If you do a search at Panda you can probably find more info on this. I got to the info page (inside a pop-up) AFTER scanning my machine and following the links about the spyware it found so I don't have a URL.