Malware takes a nasty turn

Computer world has an artiicle quoting microsoft as saying spyware and malware is beginning to use rootkits more. Currently malware is relatively easy to fine. Most is as vanilla as looking in the run key in the registry. Spyware takes advantage of many places to start from that the typical user and even many admins weren't aware of until they began battling spyware. Rootkits go deeper than that. Possibly even modifying the kernel. This brings a new urgency to the advise to reload your system if compromised!

On the same subject, Microsoft Research has a paper on detecting rootkits that is an interesting read.