Computer Security

[McNeo 3]

Living my whole life in the IT field, and working in both the good and bad sides of information security, I've learned a thing or two and, as always, thought I'd share with you.

 

Viruses and Malware

These are two very different things and you need different protection from each.

 

A virus is something that hijacks a program or part of your operating system to make it do something it's not supposed to. Because these programs and operating systems are set to do specific things it's generally easy to detect when they do something wrong that prompted by a virus. Virus scanners detect these problems and unauthorized behavior.

 

Malware (also spyware and adware) is very different. These programs are made to do something malicious. They can delete files, corrupt Windows, and more. An anti-virus program will never detect malware because a malware program presents no suspicious behavior since it is doing exactly what it's programmed to do. This is why yo ualso need malware protection.

 

Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware

Because of the way that anti-virus and anti-malware programs integrate with your system it is strongly recommended that you only run one of each (sometimes you can get away with two anti-malware). Typically what will happen is that they actually detect eachother as a threat and just ill your system resources as they try to scan eachother none stop.

 

McNeo recommends that McAfee and Norton NOT BE USED at all. These are huge programs that can bog down even the strongest computers. They incorporate a lot of bells and whistles just to make you feel good.

 

Before upgrading or changing your protection, of course make sure you completely ununstall whatever you're currently running. Because Norton and McAfee are so big and stupid this can actually be a difficult process and they offer "removal tools" for you to use and they usually work.

 

For anti-virus McNeo recommends Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). It's published and maintain by Microsoft and 100% free (you'll need to verify that you have a legit copy of Windows). In my opinion Microsoft has a very good reason to keep you safe - to prevent you from switching to Mac. MSE offers real-time protection, automatic updates, and scheduled scanning. And again, it's 100% free and fully-functional. Download here

 

For anti-malware I recommend SuperAntiSpyware. There is a free version and a paid version. Paid version adds automatic updates, scheduled scanning, and immediate customer service and advanced support - other than that the free version is just as powerful but will bug ya from time to time to buy ($20/yr I think). Download here

 

You may be interested to know that these 2 programs, and only these 2 programs, are what have kept me safe for years.

 

Backups

Backing up your data is crucial. I recommend an external hard drive and automatic backup software. Of course, this only protects from hardware failure in your computer - In the event of fire or theft it's all lost, so off-site backup (such as cloud storage) is a great choice.

 

I recommend backing up your user folder (C:\users\username\) this will include all your documents, pictures, music, and most programs and games save their info in there too so you'll have all that. In the event that you need to re-load or replace your computer most people would recommend reinstalling your software from scratch anyway, so no need to back that up - your user folder should be all you need. (I also back up my Steam folder so I don't need to re-download maps).

 

For backup I recommend (and use) SyncBack. Again, it's 100% free. The user interface isn't the nicest to get along with but once you get the hang of it it's easy - online documentation is available. And, it's very powerful - it offers more options than even I know wht to do with - compression, encryption, FTP, email reports, scheduling... Download here

 

That is all. Hope I helped someone.

[DuckiiJr. 9]

I trust no hacker but Ninjew!

 

AVG all the way :watermelon:

 

#duckswag

[Duke 85]

OR to prevent even having a chance at get either, if you use firefox get noscript works like a charm.

[McNeo 3]

OR to prevent even having a chance at get either, if you use firefox get noscript works like a charm.

 

False sense of security. Noscript is a great tool but only stops scripts (as suggested by it's name). Viruses and malware often disguise themselves as legitimate programs or updates. One of the most recent viruses spread by appearing as an Adobe update. A lot of malware spreads by appearing as an anti-malware.

 

AVG all the way

 

AVG is good. I used to use it before MSE. MSE is free. AVG is free and paid, if you use the free veriosn it pops up asking for money all the time. So at this point it a matter of do you want pop ups or no pop ups.

 

Also, it's not really a matter of trusting me as much as it is trusting Microsoft, I'm just recommending the program.

[Duke 85]

False sense of security. Noscript is a great tool but only stops scripts (as suggested by it's name). Viruses and malware often disguise themselves as legitimate programs or updates. One of the most recent viruses spread by appearing as an Adobe update. A lot of malware spreads by appearing as an anti-malware.

 

 

Most use a script to run and download themselfs before you now what happened. Not a false sense of secuity.

[Reflex 2]

Thanks for this. Thought anti-malware = anti-virus.

[MineCrack 62]

Make one on how to stay safe on the porn browser. Include all those nasty fake scan pages and kits.

[Salt 1]

*EDIT* Everytime I've tried quoting someone it quotes the person above them T.T

 

Buy a Mac. Porn Viewing Safety at it's finest.

[McNeo 3]

Make one on how to stay safe on the porn browser

 

Download and install Microsoft Virtual Machine (it's free). Install Windows on the virtual machine. Make a backup of the virtual hard drive. Do all your torrenting, porn browsing, and suspicious stuff on the VM. When it gets a virus just delete the virtual hard drive and copy the back up back into place. #winning

[McNeo 3]

Buy a Mac. Porn Viewing Safety at it's finest.

 

Macs are Unix based so it is only slightly harder to get viruses on them. But, because of the Unix platform, if you do get a virus on your Mac and can do infinitely more damage than a PC virus.

 

Also, there are in face more PC viruses that Mac viruses, simply because 85% of the market is PC - when someone make a virus they want to affect as many people as possible.

[Salt 1]

Why do you tell me this. Now I'm feeling less safe to watch my porn tonight..........Thanks....................

[Reflex 2]

Macs are Unix based so it is only slightly harder to get viruses on them. But, because of the Unix platform, if you do get a virus on your Mac and can do infinitely more damage than a PC virus.

 

Also, there are in face more PC viruses that Mac viruses, simply because 85% of the market is PC - when someone make a virus they want to affect as many people as possible.

Can keyloggers and RATs affect the Mac?

[Angrehorse 3]

@@McNeo malwarebytes works good also.

[Angrehorse 3]

What about malwarebytes another good free one.

[McNeo 3]

Can keyloggers and RATs affect the Mac?

 

Keyloggers can easily work on any machine, it's just a simple program that runs in the background. There's really no hacking or exploiting that occur so even a decently made keylogger can be difficult to detect.

 

Most known keyloggers will be detected anti-malware programs. But another thing you can do if you think you may have picked one up is to watch your network activity. A lot of times a keylogger will save up to a 1MB file (which is a lot of text) then shoot it off via FTP. Or, the keylogger itself may parse the info itself and only report what it suspects is a password - in the case check your network activity in the moments during and after when you put in a password online.

 

There's different types of RATs and they range from easy to hard to install and easy to hard to detect. A simple RAT may be a program in running in the background just waiting to receive a command, either directly or by querying an online resource. Like the keyloggers, these can be hard to catch, for the same reason. A more advanced RAT is much harder to get installed on a system because it must integrate with the I/O of the system, and the video driver if the remote user want video. Anti-virus and anti-malware will catch some of these RATs.

 

As I usually say, as an individual users you're safer than you think. Viruses and malware cause headaches and slow us down. Most of them end up being phishing or credit card scams.

 

Unless you pissed someone off, or they know you have some good data that they want, most black hat hackers aren't going to target individuals - it's not worth the time or the risk.