How secure is your computer?

Denver Post ^ | Monday, February 28, 2005 | Ross Wehner Denver Post Staff Write

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[A CA Guy]

I run the free Zone Alarm firewall and I have no problems or patches.

[kingattax]

great thread.....but the biggest problem is which browser a person is using.

use Mozilla Firefox 1.0 for better security

Internet Explorer is like the southern border of the US

[backhoe]

 

Things you need--(all FREE)
Anti-Virus
AVG Anti-Virus version 7 (free) release available...

 Avast
Firewall
Kerio(Direct Download) Zone Alarm

 If are using zone alarm it may slow your PC. Try Outpost Firewall http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost or Sygate Firewall http://www.sygate.com/ both have FREE and Pro versions and are heads above ZA.
Misc.
IE Spyads SpywareBlaster Spyware Guard
Windows Update- you must keep updated, it is the start of a secure system-
get all CRITICAL Updates

Things you want(Still Free)
 

  I use Firefox PR1 and IMHO, beats the sox off MS Explorer. Life is good with tabs. Click the link and give it a try.

Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D

SpywareBlaster
MS MVP Hosts file

Mike Lin's Homepage and get the Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor tools.

 

The best forum for malware removal:

-SWI Forums-

 

 
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315720/posts

 Microsoft Releases Anti-Spyware Beta 1 To Public Today.
Microsoft.com ^

 

=================================================

 

 

Browser Wars, take two various FR links | 12-22-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1306815/posts ...and let your compiler of links drop out of Lurk & Link mode for comment and advice: Ditch IE. Honest to God, almost anything else will give you fewer problems. Try and compare- use IE, then run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy... then try another browser and repeat. You will be stunned at the garbage IE attracts. Keep your OS updated & patched. Run a hardware firewall-- with today's LAN's, it's easy. You need a hardware firewall. Use a software firewall, too-- if you don't, you'll never know how many times your PC is trying to "phone home" and send your info across the web.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Check this out:

Windows Media Player Update Fails Spyware Infection Test

*******************************************

Nearly two months after promising to update its media player software to block the threat of malware infection, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday admitted that users of its Windows Media Player 9 Series remain at risk.

More at the link

EWeek also has this:

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Something new here:

Watchdog-attacking Bagle ramps up

********************************************************

Watchdog-attacking Bagle ramps up

By Dan Ilett, ZDNet (UK)
Published on ZDNet News: March 1, 2005, 3:53 PM PT

• Forward in
• EMAIL
• Format for
• PRINT

• Viruses and worms
• Security threats

A new variant of Bagle is spreading rapidly, security companies have warned.

Rather than a mass-mailing worm, BagleDl-L is a Trojan horse that damages security applications and attempts to connect with a number of Web sites. It has been sent via spam lists to millions of addresses in the past 12 hours, said security company McAfee, which has upgraded it to a "medium" risk. The new variant could also have boosted overall Bagle traffic, which has increased five times in the past 24 hours, e-mail security vendor Postini said Tuesday.

The attempt to disable security protection could expose systems to a variety of threats. "Any Trojan horse which turns off your antivirus or firewall can open you up to further attack, even by very old viruses," Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said in a statement.

Unlike a mass-mailing worm, the Trojan does not self-propagate, but the security companies have highlighted it because a high number of e-mails containing it have been detected.

According to antivirus companies F-Secure and Sophos, the Web sites linked to by the new Bagle currently contain no malicious code. However, Trojan and worm writers have been known to add malicious code to a Web site after the initial attack has calmed down, said Craig Schmugar, a senior virus research manager for McAfee.

For this Trojan to work, a certain amount of naivete is required on the part of victims because the e-mails contain a ZIP-file attachment that must be opened to display the programs "doc_01.exe" or "prs_03.exe," which must be run manually to infect a computer.

"This Trojan horse is aiming to take advantage of people's reflex reaction when they receive an executable file via e-mail," Cluley said in his statement. "Users who want to install software on their computer should be receiving it from their IT department, not from friends at other companies or potentially dangerous spam mailings."

Variants of Bagle, which surfaced more than a year ago, continue to proliferate.

The detection of BagleDl-L comes just days after Send-Safe.com, which offered spamming tools, was kicked off Internet service provider MCI's network. Send-Safe is said to use PCs that have been compromised by Trojan horses to propagate spam.

Dan Ilett of ZDNet UK reported from London. CNET News.com's Dawn Kawamoto contributed to this report.

[Allegra]

How secure is your computer?

Mine's got low self-esteem problems and sometimes acts jealous.

We're thinking of going to counseling.

[A CA Guy]

I hardly use Media Player, but do rely on my firewall.

[backhoe]

Thanks for the link... some around here claim "Windows is a virus," and I'm inclined to agree.

But until the wife-unit stops dragging Win2K files home from work to work on, and Linux becomes more Ready for Prime Time, we are stuck with it.

[polymuser]

Rootkits, too -- nasty buggers that get into the kernel, get full control, and can mask themselves from administrative tasks. Sometimes only noticeable by looking at a machine from an uninfected other. Full reformatting and OS reload is often necessary to eliminate them, as they bind to the 'core' of the operating system (any OS).

A small company I know has precious little funds for IT, and they're getting ticked at the time/$ lost keeping safe on the Internet and the constant annoyances while trying to get work done. They're considering a) reverting to snail mail, fax, FedEx, b) replacing ethernet with physical file sharing, and c) having one shared Internet pc as a kiosk for unavoidable e-mail, transactions, updates and research, with only necessary apps and only scanned files coming off it on physical media.

I now trust the Internet as far as I can spit a monitor. As for computing, W98SE era software does most work just fine, especially on newer/faster hardware.

I see three paths: 1) pay to regulate and police the wild, wild Internet and block the proliferating bad guys, 2) pay ever higher costs for protection at the user level, or 3) unhook from the machine.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I use Outpost free firewall (a gem of a product), AVG Anti Virus (another gem) and do daily spyware scans with 3 scanners after a good surf. I'm running Win XP SP1 by the way and haven't had a lick of trouble.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I'm running Win XP SP1 by the way and haven't had a lick of trouble.

According to the Denver Post article you are living dangerously, or you are very meticulous at running scanners, firewalls, anti-virus products etc....

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

According to the Denver Post article you are living dangerously

I am very concious of my shields capabilities and status.

I just recently loaded Win XP on my PIII-866mhz 384mb RAM system that was running Win ME. What a difference!
After seeing all the horror stories about SP2, I am a bit leary about loading it. It ain't broke, so I ain't a gonna fix it.

[A CA Guy]

I haven't known anybody to really get spyware problems unless they were on nasty sites from my experience.

I am the one among a bunch of folks that is the computer wiz, and I've fixed a lot of stuff in my time with computers.

Spyware is the worst, if I wasn't pretty good in finding my way around the registry, to fix computers would be tough.

Sometimes it is just easier to save work product to disk, F-disk and reload rather than try and find ways to uninfest a computer.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I am the one among a bunch of folks that is the computer wiz, and I've fixed a lot of stuff in my time with computers.

You and me both. I have a T-shirt that says "No. I will NOT fix your computer" on the front.
On the back it says, "But for Beer, I WILL consider it."

For my friends, I work for beer. Everybody else pays cash.

With XP and NTFS...wipe and reloading is actually a timesaver. Any other attempts to find and fix usually means blunt force trauma.

[A CA Guy]

If people don't wait weeks before calling me, or can tell me the exact day the computer slowed down or saw some strange change, I can fix it quick.

Next, usually going to processes, I've done so many that I can spot unusual ones and can query the net about a name I don't know.

Next I deal with the situation, wipe out the bad files, registry lines and then wait for the next problem to come along.

[Golden Eagle]

The good news is that none of the up-to-date, patched operating systems succumbed to a single attack.

Which is to be expected. The moral of the story is, only use operating systems that can be automatically patched by the vendor, without you having to manually upgrade the systems periodically through archaic commands.

[N3WBI3]

The other big thing to note is that Linux and Mac out of the box are as secure as windows when its set to patch daily ;)

[Golden Eagle]

The other big thing to note is that Linux and Mac out of the box are as secure as windows when its set to patch daily ;)

Except that you can't set "Linux" to patch daily. Some versions maybe, but not many when you consider the hundreds of different ones available.