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Spector Pro mystery and how to proceed

A friend who is having marital trouble came upon references to Spector Pro in her Safari history. She has never visited any Spector site. Her husband knows her Mac password and is the “suspect.” Reading about how Spector Pro works, I see it can be used most sinisterly by others with a “viewer” on a computer on the same network. I see that it is apparently totally undetectable.
I advised her, for one thing, to change her password, but if this has been already installed by her husband on her machine, the horse is out of the barn. Can you give me any advice with which I can help her?
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John Russell

Comments: 2 Responses to “Spector Pro mystery and how to proceed”

    13 years ago

    So that is some sort of spyware that was installed on her computer? I'm not familiar with it.
    If her computer has been physically compromised like that, then the only way it be sure it is gone would be to clean it completely.
    I'd get any critical documents (only documents, like word processing files, photos, etc) onto an external drive. Then I'd back the entire thing up, clone it, to another external drive. I'd keep that around for emergency purposes in case she forgets a critical file and needs it later.
    Then I'd use the original discs or Snow Leopard upgrade discs to reboot to the disc, run Disk Utility, wipe the drive, and re-install the OS and start from scratch. Then re-install any lost applications from original discs or installers re-downloaded from sites.
    That seems harsh, but this seems like a harsh situation.
    Without knowing exactly what Spector Pro does (and only the developers really do) I wouldn't be sure that any removal would be 100%.
    But perhaps search around for other solutions. Maybe it simply has an off switch?

    John Russell
    13 years ago

    Thanks, Gary. A moot point, as the husband trashed her office and smashed the Mac into a million pieces. I told her to try to retrieve the hard drive.

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