Security

Overview of Virus and Trojans

June 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Anti-virus software applications are very helpful in analyzing the virus and its threats. The users planning to buy any software applications should consider various package and select an application that offers maximum level of protection. An individual must understand that all viruses differ in their causes and threats. There are two main types of threats that affect most of the systems: Trojans and boot virus.

Trojan is a benign application and they are equally destructive when compared to virus. Trojans never replicate, but they trick the computer user to open it by posing as an application from the legitimate source. Most Trojans are annoying applications as they repeat some sound repeatedly, displays graphics, or even change the desktop. Some Trojans delete or damage any files and few even open a backdoor for many malicious applications and unauthorized users. This way, they become the threat to confidential and personal information.

The main target of most viruses and malicious codes is to damage the computer hard disk’s boot sector that has the program code of the operating system. The goals of this virus are propagation and replication. These virus normally attacks the system before booting up and even starts before any other application in the system starts working. Boot virus runs automatically whenever the system is booted. These virus are normally spread through exchange disks. Some of the popular viruses are boot virus, disk killer, form, and stoned. Most popular Trojans are Trojan.Emcodec.B and Trojan.Realsearch. Among these Trojans, Trojan.Realsearch always alert with false messages about the infected machine.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Anti-Virus, Computer virus, Virus

Businesses Need Virus Protection

May 15, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Image by Alex Dunne via Flickr

Take a look at any of the news updates about the security leaks and the safety concerns affecting businesses everywhere and you would be worried. If you were a customer of that business, you would be worried about your personal information and you might think twice about working with them again in the future. As a business owner, you need to take steps to prevent such problems from occurring.

What to Know

If you have not yet updated your IT management and technology, now is the time to do so. The world of technology continues to change to allow for better ways for you to protect yourself and your business.

Simple antivirus computer programs are not enough. Most businesses need products that are going to be more effective, including firewalls, to prevent problems from occurring.
Know that the threats are not just to your customers. Your proprietary information could be leaking out from holes in your system. This is especially true for those businesses using VoIP or other constant Internet connections.
Protecting your customer’s data is also important. You can do this by taking steps now to put a secure program in place. Most businesses need to protect personal data through third party providers.

As a business, protecting your customers is your duty. Otherwise, you may allow a hacker to get your customer’s information or allow your business’s valuable resources to be at risk. The only way to obtain this type of safety is to be proactive in doing so. It can take time and it does take a constant watchful eye on the latest up dates to technology and security to ensure safety.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Security, Voice over IP

Antivirus Updating – Is Yours Up to Date?

May 5, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Image by livibetter via Flickr

Antivirus programs are one of the most important tools that computer and Internet users have to manage their systems. Without the right protection in place, you could lose your business data, your personal identification or your entire computer system. The good news is that most antivirus programs can be helpful at stopping this threat from playing out.

Updating It

The problem with antivirus programs is that you have to ensure they are up to date. As soon as something changes in terms of the threats your system could face, your software protection is out of date. Here are some tips to keeping it updated.

Be sure that your program automatically checks for updates from its manufacturer. Most programs do this and it is critical to ensure they do.
Daily or at least every other day, check to ensure the latest update from your antivirus program is in place. You simply need to open the system up, check for updates and ensure they are downloaded.
Schedule antivirus scans to happen on their own, without you having to start them. There is no better way to protect your computer than to make the process as automatic as possible.
Know what the threats are. Do you know what could happen to your computer? More importantly, know how to prevent cyber attacks from happening to you.
Purchase and use a quality program. None of this is possible if the program you are using is not up to date in terms of its technology.

Take the time to find out if your antivirus protection is in place and is working at its best. Otherwise, your system could be at risk.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: antivirus, Malware, Security

Internet Searching Safety

March 27, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Internet searches can be time consuming, especially when you are searching for a general topic. It is important when you are doing general searches that you are careful and make certain that you are searching sites that are not a threat to your computer system. There are a few systems that will help you remain safe even though you are doing a wide search on the internet.

First and very important is that you have some type of anti virus software installed and updated on your computer. There are a large variety of choices include some that are free to users. Just because it’s cost is high does not mean that that software is the best. Check ratings and reviews. Choose your software wisely, but make sure you choose one of them.

Second and also important is that you consider your familiarity with the source of the website you are visiting. When at all possibly enter in the URL of a site you know and trust yourself. Clicking links is easily done, and can lead to negative results just as easily.

Third and not least important is to know the security settings on your web browser and search engine. Available to you are a number of security options at each of these levels. There are even filters that will also effect what types of content will be allowed to come through your search engine.

There are a wide variety of controls available to you. Make sure that you know what those are. Be aware of what settings you have chosen and how they are set. Most of all stay aware and vigilant, every program isn’t going to stop every possible encounter.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: antivirus, Uniform Resource Locator, Web search engine

Cautions Concerning Facebook and Email Ads

March 17, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

It is important to remember to safely navigate the web these days. It is easy to become trusting of a ad if you see it on a business that you use regularly and figure its gonna be fine. There are many advertisers on social media sites and email accounts that appear to be perfect for you.

Not only are the ads becoming more and more tailored by location but the text is getting better and more alluring. At times adds are down right misleading. Just because you saw your friend Joe advertising a free iPad, doesn’t mean that you should click on the link. Who knows where that link will take you. Often you can’t even be sure that your friend is the one that actually sent you the link, or really wanted to be doing any advertising in the first place.

The main rule that everyone should follow is don’t trust an ad, just because of where it appears. It is important to continue to do business with companies or businesses that you trust. Anyone can put up an ad. Anyone can appear on the web to be reputable. It is a time where a retail business can look as upstanding as any other real business.

The outcome is not to be afraid or figure everyone is out to get you. On the contrary, the outcome should be to be more educated, more aware, and more focused on getting what you want from reputably suppliers. There are many great companies out selling on the internet.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Advertising, Business, Facebook

Had Your Account Hacked Lately?

March 6, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Along with new ways of communicating come new ways for people or sometimes computers to steal your identity. It may not be your bank account or your email but social networking accounts being taken over by someone else is happening. If you are a user of social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, you many have already had one of your accounts hijacked, or hacked as people call it.

You may have noticed it already. A friend’s account that appears to be advertising a free iPad or some other gadget that is popular. You may wonder, or be confused as it is not usual for that friend to advertise. To some people it is a minor annoyance to others it interrupts their life or their business.

Your account with a social media network can be taken over by a number of means but the basic requirement is that the person that takes over your account acquires your password somehow. There are many ways that this can be done but most usually it is because you gave it to them.

It is important to be aware of look alike webpages and apps within the social network that ask you for passwords. This can easily be a trick to offer you something, in exchange for entering your password and user name. Rule 1: never give out your password to anyone for any reason. Some social networks want your email and password to get you started and to find your friends for you using an application that checks all your emails and determines which are already listed as users. This is often a reasonable and honest application. Be cautious. There is no other reason to share your passwords.

If you have shared your password for any reason, and it appears that posts are going out from your account that you did not make, then change your password.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Facebook, Password, Twitter

The Dangers and Annoyance of Mal-ware

February 23, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

There are many malicious sources online that pose potential dangers to a computer. Whether an unsuspecting email account holder inadvertently opens an attached file and installs it on their computer without knowing it is a virus, or someone stumbles upon a web site that presents a barrage of pop-ups containing viruses; there are many things that can wreak havoc on your computer. However, one of the more common associations with dangers and overall annoyance pertains to mal-ware programs. These programs are becoming more prevalent in the modern Internet, and are infecting more and more people on a daily basis.

Mal-ware programs are programs designed to infect a computer, then run silently in the background for any known period of time. As it is running in the background, it tracks the users of that computers search habits and other aspects that give an indication of their interests. It then transmits these algorithms back to the source of the virus. Once that source has collected enough information, the mal-ware begins sending ads and other annoying pop-ups to the computer in which it is infecting with theoretical relevant ads. When people click on these ads, the source of the mal-ware then begins making money. The ads while annoying in their most natural form, also have detrimental effects on the system resources, and can greatly increase the amount of time in which a web page loads.

Fortunately, there are some simple ways to check for mal-ware if you believe your computer has been compromised with a virus. Simply pull up the task manager and analyze the various processes that are running on your system at the current time. For the most part, many of them should be recognizable. If you do come across one that looks suspicious, look it up and determine if you can shut it down, or get rid of it without hurting anything on your machine.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Anti-Virus, Computer virus, Infection, Security, Spyware

Social Networking Sites Can Pose Dangers

February 10, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Social networking has become a cultural phenomenon across the world. From the popular web sites such as Facebook and the previously popular MySpace, to other sites exhibiting innovation in their inception, there is a growing number of social networking opportunities popping up on a regular basis. As this becomes more prevalent, and more people participate in social networking sites, there will be an increase in potential problems that can occur throughout. These problems come in a wide variety of different forms; from hackers obtaining account information and spamming friends lists with infected messages and emails, to private information being compromised through various unethical practices by the companies themselves; it is vital that people be cautious while using these types of sites.

Obviously, social networking poses the unique opportunity to mingle with friends and colleagues from the comfort of your own home, or from a favorite mobile device despite where they are located. As a result of this, many people have regained contact with old school mates and family members that distance typically kept apart. However, through all the positivity that erupts from the use of social networking sites, hackers take this excitement and use it to their advantage. One of the most common ways for this to occur is through hackers obtaining the account information of some unsuspecting account holder who happens to have a large friends list. This hacker then sends an infected email or message to the list of friends in the contact list telling them to open it and or install the attachment within it. Upon doing so, the people who believe this is just another trusted email from their friend are unknowingly installing a virus onto their computers.

Another concern revolves around the potential issues pertaining to private information being compromised. This is not much of an issue with some of the larger networking sites, however, smaller networking sites might participate in unethical practices and sell the private information of their members to marketing companies. As a result of this, always check your privacy settings and ensure they are set to private, and not the occasionally default public.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Social network, Social network service, Website

Protect Yourself While Participating in Social Networking Sites

February 3, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

The social networking craze stretches far and wide. With the inception of the ever popular MySpace to the even more popular Facebook; social networking sites have revolutionized the way in which people communicate and keep in contact with friends who are not local. However, as fun, efficient and useful as these sites seem to be, they can also pose some potential dangers to your computer as well as your personal information. As a result of this, it is vital to ensure you are aware of the various facets in which potential problems can occur and become prevalent within the social networking scene.

First and foremost, viruses are becoming more of a regular thing on the various social networking web sites. The process begins with the compromise of account information for someone. The hacker then uses that account information to log into the account in question. Upon gaining access to the account, the malicious entity sends out a mass message to the list of friends associated with that particular account, typically including a downloadable attachment. Due to the fact that the people receiving the message do not suspect the person who owns the account would send anything harmful, they do not think twice before opening and installing the attachment. When the virus is installed, it can do a number of different things, among one of the most detrimental is to replicate the process and continue compromising account information. It is extremely important to ensure that when opening anything in a social network setting to be cautious prior to opening the file. Ensure the file has a viable file extension and is not an executable file that contains the extension .exec.

In addition to the various virus threats, social networking sites have come under fire regarding their privacy policy practices. The issue reolves around the concept of the web sites in question making user profile information public by default. This poses a problem to those people who are unaware of this and do not know how to properly change their information to private status.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: Social network, Social network service

Frequent Errors Without Explanation? Find Out If Your Firewall Is To Blame

January 29, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Average and normal computer users prefer simple errors that speak of the problem in a language that they can understand. An error that informs the computer users that the program cannot be operated without causing an illegal transaction is often preferred to other complicated reports.

However, a professional or computer expert will prefer the latter approach because it will help us him or her identify the root cause of the problem very quickly. On the other hand, a general error report means that the process of identifying which program or component is to blame will have to be initiated from scratch.

If you want to try and tackle the problem on your own, you will have to use your creativity and an intuitive approach. If you have installed a software application that involves use of local area network or intranet, you may face problems because of lack of firewall privileges.

If your firewall has been instructed to block all software applications from contacting other computers in the local area network, it may cause certain computer programs to stop functioning. Certain programs rely on local area network created within the computer. Combination of Java, MySQL and others such languages may be necessary for deciphering data from a database. This may be an intrinsic feature of the software.

The firewall may be blocking the program from operating and you may be flummoxed because the program works well in other computers. Your problem may be related to the firewall and its configuration.

You should either modify the configuration of your firewall to permit automatic privileges or should make minor changes to ensure the program is included in the safe list. Of course, it goes without saying that you should add the name of the program in the safe list only when it is obtained from a safe source.

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: firewall, User (computing)