Home PC protection

This is more of technical kind of question, but since I don't trust anymore
to the informations I can find online, elsewhere, and I don't know any person who's well informed about this things,
I would like to ask you for some help with protecting my home PC.

It's not that I have some important "secrets" on it, but I do use it for kind of a journal and all the things I'm reading,
regarding this SOTT site and C's, and translations, and losing all that material would be very painful,
as I've experienced it twice in the past.

I bought a new PC few months ago, cause my last one simply "refused" to work suddenly,
and none could explain it to me and I was not able to recover the informations filed on it.
It also happened a year ago, when it just crashed, after upgrading some harmless components and that was done
by "experts" from companies in that line of a job, as it was the first time also.. and everything was lost...
Both times, most of my BU dvd-s didn't wanna work either

Since I had some times of trouble with one person,that was going through my last PC,
the one that crashed, without my knowledge and completely betraying my fullish trust,
and this person is very capable of hacking, as well proven dangerous...
And was around my new PC few times, before I realized the truth about him...
I am asking for help with security issue.

Could someone recommend me what steps to take in order to "clean" any potential stuff placed on my PC,
or how to check if there's some "noise" on it, kind of the one which would aloud other person to enter my documents
via online remote PC? Is that something that can easily be done just with simple virus-scan? Is that all?

Every once in a while I find open documents on my desktop, when returning to PC after few hours of other work,
the ones I didn't open, definitely, and no one was at the house but me.
My reasoning, at the moment is that - if someone wanted to hack my PC it would probably be done
without my knowledge at all, and not in the way of leaving such an obvious traces...
But, anyway, the feeling is very ugly, no matter if it's "happening" or my PCs have an intention of "going wild",
the uncomfortable feeling inside of me grows and it makes me wanna do something about it.
To stop it, to find out about some more things I can do, to be sure I've done my best
in effort to protect myself from another lost of my documents...

Thank you

color,

I use all of:
Ad-Aware www.lavasoft.com
AVG Antivirus Free Edition www.grisoft.com
Spybot Search&Destroy www.safer-networking.org
Sygate Personal Firewall (find another one - company was since taken over by Norton)

that is, assuming you use windows. Hope that helps.

At minimum, follow 'name' advice. Connecting to the Internet brings all sorts
of cripe into your system if not protected. Nothing is foolproof, but at least you
can slow it down, like the dutch-boy sticking his finger into the dike.

Also, invest into a backup system of sorts, or at minimum, get a cd/dvd burner
and burn your important files on it for safekeeping in case of a hard-disk failure.
Hard disks do not last forever and some can die "brand new" or soon after. I have
had all sorts of hardware failures: memory, HD, CPU, motherboards, power supplies,
intermittent failures, you name it, I saw it flop around and/or die! ;)

Some people like to buy a second drive, and copy all the important stuff on it for
safekeeping and then disconnect it. You can buy a external HD or removable HD
carriers for this sort of thing. There are many choices and some are cheap and
others can get very expensive (like an automated tape backup system).

Okay, I'm downloading Spybot now, and I already have antivirus : Avast, free edition
and it's on access scanner.
Is that one OK or should I switch to AVG?
I'm also using lavasoft ad-aware already, but now I'm not sure what about "personal firewalls"?
Had no idea this is something coming separately... so..
any suggestions for some free edition for start?

And I guess that after installing and running all that,
it would be detected if someone is "going through" my PC?

And also, thank you Dant, external HD or removable HD
sounds like a great solution for BU...

Thank you

I have tried both Avast and AVG and I favor AVG over Avast because of
its simplicity in setup, record-keeping, automation, well, its a darn good
program. The really neat thing is that AVG is *really* easy to update even
after your 1-year free-license expires. Of course, only ONE AVG PER SYSTEM,
non-commercial use, license is required hence the "free" part. Only ONCE, AVG
screwed up with an AV update release and AVG complained of viruses that were
not really viruses but a mistake by the AV release. This can happen to any AV
vendors, if they are not careful. I paid heed not to react to soon checked online
to see if anyone complained and if the said virus is really a virus or not. It pays
to check before damaging yourself on false positives.

There are other free-ware products out there, but as far as I know, none of them
matches that of AVG, Avast, or other commercial (but free 1-license, non-commercial)
AV products.

Color said:

I'm not sure what about "personal firewalls"?
Had no idea this is something coming separately... so..
any suggestions for some free edition for start?

Click to expand...

If you're running Windows on a broadband network, you most definitely need a software firewall. You should also consider purchasing a hadware firewall as well. Linksys routers work quite well in that respect. Try doing a google search for free firewalls. Sygate is the one I would recommend, you can still find it on download.com but it was shelved in '05. You can try searching download.com for Kerio or Zone Alarm. But I would certainly get at least a software firewall up and running soon if you are on broadband.

Check this link for more info on firewalls: http://www.firewallguide.com/software.htm

I reccomend Ubuntu Linux. It's open source, community developed, free software. With this operating system there are no viruses, no adware, no dialers, no trojans etc. Cheers !

beau said:

If you're running Windows on a broadband network, you most definitely need a software firewall.

You should also consider purchasing a hadware firewall as well. Linksys routers work quite well in that respect. Try doing a google search for free firewalls. Sygate is the one I would recommend, you can still find it on download.com but it was shelved in '05. You can try searching download.com for Kerio or Zone Alarm. But I would certainly get at least a software firewall up and running soon if you are on broadband.

Check this link for more info on firewalls: http://www.firewallguide.com/software.htm

Click to expand...

First, thank you for informing me about this, I had no idea about it...
And I understand all about the personal firewall, I'll get it fast.

I'm using 100.0 Mbps LAN via cable net- provider and also their Network Adapter
(Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller),
which I can not change, or I'll lose the technical support service from them...
So I think that means I can't set hardware firewall through Linksys routers, for example?
Can I? Is there some other way to have hardware firewall?

I tried google it but I am now really confused about the difference between the software and hardware firewall..
even called few shops and asked if offering some kind of hardware firewall and they said
they have no idea what I'm talking about! And I don't, but I know the name for it:
hardware firewall... And feeling quite blond at the moment

Anyway, thank you for all this, if one more tip to come about hardware firewall,
I would appreciate it a lot.

observer said:

I reccomend Ubuntu Linux. It's open source, community developed, free software. With this operating system there are no viruses, no adware, no dialers, no trojans etc. Cheers !

Click to expand...

All of those things are possible with Linux. Be careful not to spread such disinfo!

Color said:

I'm using 100.0 Mbps LAN via cable net- provider and also their Network Adapter
(Marvell Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller),
which I can not change, or I'll lose the technical support service from them...
So I think that means I can't set hardware firewall through Linksys routers, for example?
Can I? Is there some other way to have hardware firewall?

Click to expand...

If you use Windows XP or Vista then chances are that you have Windows Firewall installed and that it's running on your system. Check out Control Panel -> Security Center and take a look.

As for the hardware firewall, you could get something like a Linksys router (or maybe Alphashield hardware firewall, or D-Link router) and plug it into your cable modem, then plug your ethernet cable in the router.

mark said:

As for the hardware firewall, you could get something like a Linksys router and plug it into your cable modem, then plug your ethernet cable in the router.

Click to expand...

That's the answer! I get it now, thank you :)

For Windows file backup I use the free Cobian Backup ( http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm ). Will not backup your entire system though. You can backup to a USB/FireWire or network external drive. Also has support for CD and DVD recordable discs.

Besides a firewall, install the FireFox web browser ( http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ ) and the NoScript ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 ) add on for FireFox. NoScript blocks scripts from web servers by default. To quote "It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site, and guards the "trust boundaries" against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)." Trojans are commonly able to find their way into your system via scripts from either hacked and/or malicious web servers. You will be suprised how many web sites have scripts linking to other sites which NoScript will reveal. Good to see SOTT cross scripts to no one else!

More complicated but worth doing is to not use the computer as administrator. Create a limited account to do day to day work. A limited account cannot change system settings or install new programs which is essentially what Trojans do. To get an idea of how this works check _http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/05/the_importance_of_the_limited.html

mark said:

All of those things are possible with Linux. Be careful not to spread such disinfo!

Click to expand...

disinfo? Please explain.

yamez said:

For Windows file backup I use the free Cobian Backup ( http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm ). Will not backup your entire system though. You can backup to a USB/FireWire or network external drive. Also has support for CD and DVD recordable discs.

Besides a firewall, install the FireFox web browser ( http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ ) and the NoScript ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 ) add on for FireFox. NoScript blocks scripts from web servers by default. To quote "It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site, and guards the "trust boundaries" against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)." Trojans are commonly able to find their way into your system via scripts from either hacked and/or malicious web servers. You will be suprised how many web sites have scripts linking to other sites which NoScript will reveal. Good to see SOTT cross scripts to no one else!

More complicated but worth doing is to not use the computer as administrator. Create a limited account to do day to day work. A limited account cannot change system settings or install new programs which is essentially what Trojans do. To get an idea of how this works check _http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/05/the_importance_of_the_limited.html

Click to expand...

I'm using Firefox for years now but didn't had that add on, so thank you, I've installed it just now :)
I'll check on that Cobian bu...
Idea of creating a limited acc is great! Thanx, I really appreciate it!

Now I have Sunbelt personal firewall, Spybot, Avast (maybe changing to AVG), Ad-aware,
and on Monday will buy some router with hardware firewalls ;)
I've learn a lot in one day about this stuff, thanks to you guys...

Thank you all for your help :)

observer said:

mark said:

All of those things are possible with Linux. Be careful not to spread such disinfo!

Click to expand...

disinfo? Please explain.

Click to expand...

I believe it was concerning the fact that an operating system, by itself,
doesn't give you any extra protection against viruses and hacking and the rest...
Or Ubunutu has it all covered so well that one needs nothing else?
I've just looked at it's official site but I don't see anything mentioning all that,
I can't find it, so how about a link?
Can you give me more details on what you were claiming?

Thank you