02/28/2005
FROM: Carnegie Mellon Computing Services Information Security Office

Your Web access has been blocked. Please see below for details.

Carnegie Mellon Computing Services has detected that software from MarketScore.com is installed on your computer. Until you remove this software as described below, your access to the World Wide Web will be redirected to this page.

NOTE: You still have general network access, so services such as E-Mail, Andrew Calendar, or any other applications that use the network should continue to work properly unless the applications use web-iso for authentication. We will not allow web-iso traffic to be accepted from any marketscore proxy.

This page contains the following information:

If you have any questions about MarketScore.com or this Web page, please feel free to call the Help Center at x8-HELP (x8-4357).

What is MarketScore.com

To encourage users to install its software, MarketScore.com advertises that its "free" software improves or "optimizes" the speed of your internet connection and defends against email viruses with software "that uses award-winning anti-virus technology from Symantec™" At the same time, MarketScore claims that another advantage to installing the software is the "opportunity to influence the Internet as a member of our premier Internet research community."

There is no evidence that Marketscore's software improves internet connection speed. However, MarketScore does collect and compile information about what you are accessing on the Web for the purpose of selling this valuable marketing data to interested parties.

How does MarketScore collect data and why is that bad?

After you install the MarketScore software, all of your web connections are directed through MarketScore's servers (called "proxy servers"). Information from your web sessions, including anything that you enter on a Web page or anything that is displayed, is stored on MarketScores servers to be analyzed.

Because this information is stored by MarketScore, it is possible for MarketScore (or someone who gains access to their servers) to obtain your username and password, credit card numbers, bank PINs and financial information, personal correspondence, and other confidential information. While MarketScore may not use this information inappropriately, the potential exists for a third party to gain access to the data, potentially resulting in identify theft, unauthorized access to personal accounts or your Carnegie Mellon accounts, and so on.

It should also be noted that MarketScore collects data through proxy using Instant Messenger and other services.

Computing Services Information Security Office strongly discourages the use of MarketScore or similar services because of the security implications mentioned above.

How do I remove MarketScore.com software from my computer?

You must perform all of the following steps to complete remove the MarketScore.com software from your computer. These instructions apply to Windows XP, but most likely will work for older, unsupported versions of the Windows as well.

Note: You should change all of your passwords once you have uninstalled the Marketscore software from your computer.

Remove Marketscore software using the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel.

  1. Select "Control Panels" from the Windows "Start" menu.

  2. Double-click on "Add or Remove Programs" to open the Add or Remove Programs control panel.

    A list of programs installed on your computer is displayed.

  3. Find "Marketscore" in the list of programs, and click on it.

  4. Click on the "Remove" button for the Marketscore program item.

    Windows will run the uninstaller. This will disable the software, but will not remove it from your computer.
  5. When the uninstaller is finished, restart the computer normally and proceed to the next step.

Remove Marketscore program files from your hard drive

  1. From the Windows Start menu, select "Run..."

    The "Run" dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the "Open:" text box, type "cmd" (without the quotes) and then click the OK button.

    A window with a command-line interface is displayed.

  3. At the command line prompt, type the following:

    cd %SystemRoot\system32

  4. Type each of the following four commands at the command prompt:

    del mksc.exe
    del nsosscfg.exe
    del osmim.dll
    del okshook.dll

  5. Type "exit" (without the quotes) to close the command window.

    The program files are now removed from your computer. Proceed to the next step.

Install and Run Spybot Search and Destroy

  1. Click on the link below to download Spybot Search and Destroy to your computer:

    Download Spybot Search & Destroy

  2. Double-click on the file you downloaded in step 1 to run the installer. Follow the instructions provided by the installer, and proceed to the next step once Spybot has been installed on your computer.

  3. Launch Spybot Search & Destroy from the Windows Start menu.

    A warning will be displayed. Click on OK to dismiss the warning.

  4. On the main Spybot window, click on the "Check for Problems" button.

    Spybot will check your computer for Marketscore software as well as any other software that is known to cause problems or security risks. This may take several minutes!

    When Spybot is finished checking your computer, a window like the one below will be displayed, although there will most likely be many other things listed along with the "Marketscore" entry.

  5. Make sure that all of the entries under "Marketscore" are checked. You might want to leave the other items listed checked as well, so that they will be removed by Spybot, but if you don't have time to evaluate each entry to make sure you want to get rid of them, make sure that at least the "Marketscore" entries are checked.

  6. Click on the "Fix selected problems" to remove the Marketscore program information (along with any other items you had checked).

  7. When Spybot is finished, close Spybot and proceed to the next step.

Remove the MarketScore and NetSetter certificates

When installed, MarketScore installs certificates so that your browser can access the proxy servers without alerting you each time. To uninstall the certificates, follow the instructions below appropriate to the browser that you use:

Internet Explorer

  1. Launch your Internet Explorer browser.

  2. Select "Internet Options..." from the Tools menu.

    The Internet Options dialog box is displayed.

  3. Click on the Content tab.

  4. Click on the Certificates button

    The Certificates dialog box is displayed.

  5. Click on the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" tab.

  6. Find the "MarketScore" and "Netsetter" certificates in the list. For each certificate, click on the certificate, then click on the "Remove" button.

  7. Close all dialog boxes by clicking on OK.

Netscape Navigator or Mozilla

  1. Launch your Netscape or Mozilla browser.

  2. Select Preferences from the Edit menu.

    The Preferences dialog box is displayed.

  3. Expand the "Privacy and Security" item in the list on the left side of the dialog box, then click on Certificates.

  4. Click on the "Manage Certificates" button.

    The Certificate Manager dialog box is displayed.

  5. Click on the "Authorities" tab.

  6. Find the "MarketScore" and "Netsetter" certificates in the list. For each certificate, click on the certificate, then click on the "Delete" button.

  7. Close all dialog boxes by clicking on OK.


If you have any questions...

If you have any problems with these instructions, or if you have any questions or comments, please send email to abuse@andrew.cmu.edu.