It turns out that the advice shared on UT recommending Ad-aware (Lava Soft) and Spybot Search and Destroy as to combat expoits has been the right advice.
It also confirms [at least] my suspicions that many of these pretenders are really intruders themselves.
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm#ss_note
Imagination is more important than knowledge