One of the many things that being a member of the Blogging community permits me to do, is pass on critical information concerning new, or evolving, Internet security threats.

Often I am notified of these threats by readers who either email me directly, or by readers commenting on a particular article.

Such was the case this morning when I received a comment from Mark, a Blogger himself at mark-techwalker pointing out the dangers of PCAntiSpyware a cloned version of the rogue anti-spyware threat PCCleaner. You can read his article on how this virulent piece of malware infected his daughter’s machine on his Blog.

In researching this malware I have discovered that PCAntiSpyware is capable of hijacking the desktop, after it infects a computer, by way of web browser security holes. As well, it can be inserted onto a machine by a number of Trojan downloaders.

As with all rogue security applications, PCAntiSpyware was developed to mislead unaware computer users’ into downloading and paying for the “full” version of this bogus software,

Windows Task Manager is a bit of a tease. Sure it provides you with some usable information, but it falls far short of providing what you may really need. It is most commonly used to display information on all processes running on your computer, as well as advising you of the CPU and memory usage stats for a giving process. Additional selective information is also available.

From within Task Manger you have the option of selectively killing processes. But how do you determine which ones are safe to kill based on the limited information Task Manager provides.

If you’re a skilled computer user it’s probable you’re aware of every process running in the background, the application or service that is responsible for launching it, and the function it performs. Better yet, you probably have the know-how to selectively kill processes to optimize memory use and trim your machine for maximum performance.

But what if you’re a novice computer user? Where can you get the