SECURITY - VIRUS INFOMATION / HOAX / URBAN LEGENDS

Virus Email Firewall Spyware Keylogger protection Protect your privacy security

The Best Firewall is F-secure

The most popular AV products fail to prevent 80% of new viruses.
Consider the following information, published last year by AusCERT, Australia's Computer Emergency Response Team. 2006
AusCERT declined to name the AV companies publicly, but in case you didn't know, the leading AV vendors are Symantec (SYMC), McAfee (MFE), and Trend Micro (TMIC), in that order.

Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
"More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites. 2003There are hundreds of thousands of systems (mostly on cable/DSL connections) out there which have either already been hijacked, or are hijack-ready, and are being used as a distributed spamplifier. The hijack method is a virus/worm which creates exploitable open proxies on the target system. Spammers then use these systems (and their broadband connections) to send millions of spams very rapidly. The companies which operate these networks (Comcast, Verizon, etc.) are either unable or unwilling to make any attempt to address these issues, which is why various DNSBLs have been created so that folks can defend themselves.Windows + incompetent/negligent broadband ISPs = happy spammers. A DNSBL is a DNS-based blocking list, usually created to limit the transmission of unsolicited commercial email, aka spam.

VIRUS HOAXES AND LEGENDS

What are they?
What's Wild?
How to find them?
Get Rid of them?
Protect against them?

WILD VIRUS INFORMATION

THE BIG PICTURE - How Vulnerable Are You?

THERE ARE BUILT IN VULNERABILITES WITH OPERATING SYSTEMS
Security starts with closing doors that don't need to be open. On a PC, these doors are called "ports" -- channels to the Internet reserved for specific tasks, such as publishing a Web page.

How Vulnerable Are You?
See how "open" your machine is right now:

Test your Shields, Probe your ports.
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

PORTS ( What are they? Which ones are used by Trojans?) are what network worms like Blaster crawl in through, exploiting bugs in an operating system to implant themselves. (Viruses can't move on their own and need other mechanisms, such as e-mail or floppy disks, to spread.) It's canonical among security experts that unneeded ports should be closed. Windows XP Home Edition, however, ships with five ports open, behind which run "services" that serve no purpose except on a computer network. "Messenger Service," for instance, is designed to listen for alerts sent out by a network's owner, but on a home computer all it does is receive ads broadcast by spammers. The "Remote Procedure Call" feature exploited by Blaster is, to quote a Microsoft advisory, "not intended to be used in hostile environments such as the Internet."In comparison, Mac OS X ships with zero ports open to the Internet.

THE FIREWALL:

A firewall provides further defense against worms, rejecting dangerous Internet traffic.

Windows XP includes basic firewall software (it doesn't monitor outgoing connections), but it's inactive unless you use its "wizard" software to set up a broadband connection. Turning it on is a five-step task in Microsoft's directions (www.microsoft.com/protect) that must be repeated for every Internet connection on a PC.

Mac OS X's firewall isn't enabled by default either, but it's much simpler to enable. Red Hat Linux is better yet: Its firewall is on from the start.

PATCHES: AKA CRITICAL UPDATES

THE BIG PICTURE - patches, bugs, holes, scripting, activeX

Windows is better than most operating systems at easing the drudgery of staying on top of patches and bug fixes, since it can automatically download them. A PC kept current with Microsoft's security updates would have survived this week unscathed. "Critical updates" are called that for a reason, and it's foolish to ignore them. (The same goes for not installing and updating anti-virus software.)

WINDOWS X:
by default, provides unrestricted, "administrator" access to a computer. This sounds like a good thing but is not, because any program, worms and viruses included, also has unrestricted access. Yet administrator mode is the only realistic choice: XP Home's " limited account," the only other option, doesn't even let you adjust a PC's clock.

Mac OS X and Linux get this right: Users get broad rights, but critical system tasks require entering a password. If, for instance, a virus wants to install a "backdoor" for further intrusions, you'll have to authorize it. This fail-safe isn't immune to user gullibility and still allows the total loss or theft of your data, but it beats Windows' anything-goes approach.

You've been infected - Ugh! It's Too Late - Now What??

How to Get Rid of the Klez Virus/Worm

How to Get Rid of SoBig.F Worm

(1) Visit http://fdisk.radified.com/ for information on this Microsoft-produced disk utility.
2) Boot the affected computer from a floppy disk.
(3) At the command prompt, type "format c: /sys." For more severely-damaged
systems, run the FDISK command.

How to get rid of the ‘Parasite’ is a shorthand term for “unsolicited commercial software” — that is, a program that gets installed on your computer which you never asked for, and which does something you probably don’t want it to, for someone else’s profit.

Get rid of Annoying Adware

WiFi networks using apples AirPort base station

ARTICLES

LABELING VIRUSES CORRECTLY!
What they are: "Microsoft Outlook Express virus" or "Microsoft Explorer virus" or "Microsoft Word macro virus (reputedly the single largest source of viruses for years!)."

STATISTICS FROM ANTI-VIRUS RESEARCHERS
A MUST READ from Gene Spafford - a real security expert

COMPUTER SECURITY: WILL WE EVER LEARN?
by Bruce Schneier
If we've learned anything from the past couple of years, it's that computer security flaws are inevitable. Counterpane Internet Security, Inc.

FBI - Gives Free Software - Alert Denial Of Service Attacks

For the Sake of History
**Year 2000 (Y2K) Information from CERT Coordination Center** (By the Way, Before Spending Time Figuring Out What CERT stands for as an Acronym Consider This Information From the CERT Web Page: ""CERT" does not stand for anything. Rather, it is a registered service mark of Carnegie Mellon University." DD )

Protect Your Computer

from various forms of "malware" viruses, ad-ware, spyware.

StopBadware.org will identify organizations that distribute spyware, adware, and other unwanted computer programs, as well as the tactics they employ to intall their applications. The site will also include an area where consumers can submit testimonials about their experiences with different software they have
downloaded and give ordinary users a place to go
and get an early warning before they download something that might harm their computer."

FOUR FREE programs you should download and install and use together.
If you keep them up to date, they block or remove 99% of the "diseases" you'll otherwise catch if you "have unprotected net".

1. ZoneAlarm - free - Firewall: makes your computer invisible to scanners when you are connected to the Internet; also blocks "phone-home" scumware.
(www.zonealarm.com)

The freebie is here: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp

2. AVG - free - Antivirus: catches/isolates viruses before they can infect
you - make sure you use its virus update function at least weekly. (www.grisoft.com)

The free version is here: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

3. Ad-Aware - free - Adware remover: finds/removes scumware that advertizers dump onto your hard disk to report where you go, what you look at, maybe who you are - use the update function at least weekly (http://www.lavasoft.de/)

Here's the Adaware free version: http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

4. KeyLoggers

SpyBot S&D - free - Spyware remover: finds/removes trojans, keyloggers, and other sneaky stuff - use the update function at least weekly.
This is the download page: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

KeyGhost II ProfessionalT
hardware keyboard logger to plug into your keyboard and record over 500,000 keystrokes - no software to install to record or retrieve keystrokes. All keystrokes are stored in flash memory using 128-bit encryption.

PestPatrol Enhances Cookie, Keylogger Detection
It detects "spyware" that collects personal information about a user or computer; Trojans; Denial of Service attack agents; and probe tools that search for vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.

EMAIL FILTERS

"Eudora" E-mail Program filters your email - keep the nasty stuff out.Download a free copy of Eudora This site explains the most unique honor the Southern writer Miss Eudora Welty has received was when software engineer Steve Dorner named his e-mail program for her.
Go Here to find out how to set up your filters to get rid of all the spam you are getting.

Pegasus Mail for Windows offers an excellent alternative to Microsoft IE. Pegasus will only display HTML if you tell it to, and even then won't download anything from a server unless you specifically tell it again to do so. It won't execute any code or script so major sources of both spam and virus infection are avoided. It's built for a network environment, but you can use it standalone as well. And it's got a fantastic users group with e-mail list for support. Best of all, it's completely free.

How to Filter Email - go back down memory lane 10/24/97

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