The upside of all this is that at the end of the process, my machine is faster and more stable, free of all the clutter that Windows had collected over the couple of years since my last reinstall. The massive downside is that I spent two full working days trying to clean off the spyware, plus another day and a half getting all my software reinstalled and my backup data migrated over.

But through all of this, I was reminded of several basic but important lessons that we should all keep in mind, no matter how experienced and knowledgeable we think we are.

Nobody is immune.

I think deep down, we all know this one, but the more experienced we get in this field, the more we think that spyware infections only happen to other, less knowledgeable people. The reality is that if we are not careful, if we get lulled into letting our guard down by overconfidence, our machines can be compromised just as easily as anybody else.

Download and run files only from trusted sources.