Computer Security

[Lauranimal]

Greetings to all the tech wizards out there.

6 months ago, a friend of mine loaded a 6 month trial of a security program called F-secure. It's been most excellent!!! But it turns out it is meant for business use, and is extraordinarily expensive. It expires in 12 days!!!

Can anyone recommend a good security software program that I can buy to protect my computer, without completely emptying my wallet?

I always feel like I am paying protection money to the mob. "you pay us, and we won't crash your computer" kind of thing.

Thanks for any help.
Lar

 

[Beau]

Check out this thread - http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=7208.0 - for a bunch of info on different ways to protect your computer. You'll notice that most of the recommended software is free. Paying for it doesn't necessarily mean it will work well (see McAfee and Norton AV).

 

[Vulcan59]

Hi Lauranimal,

There is a topic on Home PC Protection where you will get some ideas. Some of the links maybe dated but the general ideas discussed therein, I think, are still valid. :)


Added Later - Oops, same link as Heimdallr. We moderators think a like I guess. ;)

 

[pete02]

Just in case you were looking for a simple thing to install Laura, I usually just go with McAfee AntiVirus. Its cheap ($25 at walmart) because its only antivirus but comes with everything you need. Its not a total internet security suite but you don't really need all that stuff imho. I think its a reputable product and it doesn't hold up my machine like Norton's product and some others do. I've never had any software conflicts with it and have been using it for years. fwiw

 

[Ellipse]

You can add Windows Defender if not already setup : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=435bfce7-da2b-4a6a-afa4-f7f14e605a0d
You have to schedule it once a week to scan you PC.

For a free antivirus you have Avast (http://www.avast.com/)

 

[Buddy]

I'm assuming you are talking about a Windows computer? There is a way to completely avoid all aggravation associated with virus' and junk. It will take a bit of up-front preparation, but the future savings of time, energy and money are enormous.

Just start with a clean system, however you have to get there. (restore, fresh install of Windows, or thorough scan and removal of virus', adware, etc.

Make sure you have your desktop set up the way you want it and all the programs you want already installed and configured. Make sure you have a sizable extra partition available, or have a second hard drive installed in your computer.

Download and use "snapshot.exe" to back up your operating stystem, with all its programs intact, to the extra partition or hard drive.

After the backup, just use the computer normally, but save all your pix, docs and all your other personal stuff onto the extra partition or hard drive so that if and when you have to use "snapshot" to restore your computer, your personal files will still be where you originally put them.

What my wife and I enjoy about this process is that at the first sign of infection, or even suspicion of unwanted intrusion, we'll shut down, spend a few minutes with the restore and then bam!, brand new operating system, just the way we want it with all our programs already installed and all our personal files, undisturbed, and still to hand where we put them in the first place!

"snapshot" also provides an option to restore only the Master Boot Record, Partition Structure, or the full restore which includes all.

I recommend doing the restore from DOS. You can download a FreeDos boot disk for floppy or cd-rom here:

_http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/

After 30 days you can no longer back up your system with "snapshot", but the restore option is available indefinitely. If you like the program and find it useful, you should consider purchasing it, as it has been well worth it to us!

Current version is:

Drive SnapShot 1.3
Disk Image Backup/Restore for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/PE/x64/Vista
_http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/


Hope this helps! :)

 

[Lauranimal]

Wow! Thanks guys! This is really helpful!

Bud... that last thing sounds just dreamy.... but I don't think I am tech-savvy enough to make it all work out.

Will let you all know how it turns out.

 

[dant]

[Moderators: Please put this thread wherever is deemed appropriate!]

Just wanted to add a little tidbit here:

What good is security, if you lose your hard drive w/ no good backup?

Do not assume that your HD will last "forever". How long is that?
I think it depends on your (lemon) luck.... please let me explain...

I have bought a brand new drive. It lasted me 3 months. How did I know
that it was going bad or has a problem? Run drive vendor's S.M.A.R.T software
on the drive and it will tell you if the drive's internal checks are ok or not or
better yet - hope that your OS has good SMART technology installed with
good warning systems - but read on for the details...

If there are problems with the drive and still under warrantee, get an RMA and
send the drive back to the manufacturer (or to the store if you bought
insurance), and it will come back in maybe 3-4 weeks. You will most likely
get back a factory refurbished drive. As (lemon) luck would have it, the refurbished
drive also failed in <3 months. I am still waiting for a returned drive. Sending
the drive back means you have to pay for the shipping. When I called the
manufacturer to complain about having to pay shipping for the 2nd drive, I
requested that they pay for the shipping and they authorized "pre-paid"
shipping for me. If you do not ask, then you pay for shipping again, and
again, and again then you have paid more than the drive is worth... could
have bought a new drive, and perhaps the cycle repeats?

Meanwhile, there is a good chance that the data is corrupted and beyond
recovery or lost forever. Did you do a backup? How long ago was it? The
recovery is only good as the most recent (uncorrupted) backup. BTW,
it is of course possible to backup a virus infected system - so make sure
you remove the virus or restore a previous KNOWN good/virus-free backup.

I did NOT know that the drive was bad running win2000/XP/Vista until I installed
and ran the LATEST Fedora v11 (it pops up with a warning of the bad SMART
drive and stays there forever on your screen - until the drive is replaced. neat,
Huh? However, F11 is not recommend for production - I wonder if Ubuntu has
this feature as well) and this was a RECENT Fedora added feature (the popup,
that is) but previous versions required you to check the logs for potential problems.

The point is, get a VERY good backup and restore program. For XP/Vista/Win7,
I would recommend Acronis True Image. It does a TRUE backup and restore and
your data, 100% restored, anywhere, any drive, any partition, EASY to use GUI
but of course make sure your backup is good too!

Do NOT rely on Microsoft's backup solution - it is horrible, imo. I recommend that you
get a USB drive exclusively for saving your backup files, and remove the drive afterwards
after a backup.

As of 1 year ago, also bought a HD for my daughter and right off the bat, it was acting
"funny" as the data was being corrupted at random times - and running chkdsk
(which is NOT automatic process, and needs to be manually invoked), might recover
the drive, or give you missing or corrupted files and put into a special place at C:\ drive,
or simply fail and stop right there. But as (lemon) luck had it, it ran for a year like this
until it reached a point where bad-sectors (permanently lost data areas) in random
places - even though the OS was booting and running but when a program runs and
hits the bad-sector error locations - the system would freeze up. We lived with this
for awhile - and during that time after a year a learning about the SMART technology,
I checked the drive a lo and behold - the drive history was showing me how bad it
really was! It took me a long time to discover Acronis - it actually was able to
recover the entire drive in spite of bad-sectors (both XP and Vista, but does not
support win2000-pro (or 2000 workstation) as this requires a separate product)
and the neat thing is - it is VERY fast, it has a lot of "smarts", and knows how to
deal with the special "security-traps" that Microsoft installs on the hard drives
and embedded into the OS itself.

This is a very technical and intentional (psychopathic) problem outside the scope
of this thread, but the point is, Acronis works. Do not deal with Norton Ghost v15 - they
caused me 1 month of grief and destroyed my OS (on a test system) and it was
not worth it. Bottom line is, Acronis saved me grief beyond measure as my daughter's
(and mine) system (a multi-boot system w/ XP/Vista/Fedora-9/Ubuntu 9.10 with windows
and Linux Apps partitions) is fully recovered with new drives. For extra measure, I bought
a 2nd drive (overkill?) and semi-mirrored the drive, which means, I can boot off the
1st or 2nd drive and grab important files off the failing drive and safely replace
the failing drive.

So to re-iterate, Xp/Vista may or may not have S.M.A.R.T technology installed
to clearly warn it's users, right away, of a failing or failed drive and to always stay
popped up, until the drive is replaced.

The trick is, catching the warning message, if you happened to be watching,
in the case of pop-ups, or check the log files, and to locate any SMART drive
warnings - and hopefully, you won't suddenly lose your hard drive, to be left
empty-handed.

I am sure there are other ways to do things, but this is just my particular
case and how I effectively dealt with this issue.

Here is an example of SMART HDD failure detection on Fedora-11:

{This was part of my entropic experience, as noted in the FOTCM
membership thread}

FWIW,
Dan

 

[Voyageur]

Thank you dant for the information on Hard Drives (HD); useful to check these things out from time to time.

Also, if you or another know and could answer a question concerning something read on SOTT the other night; an article about computer finger prints, i believe, and there was a comment about a program called TOR which was mentioned as a safe means of protecting your computer from cookies and such; read the link, but as a novice this did not resonate as being simplistic. Is this TOR something that is used extensively, is it something to look at?

Thanks again. :)

 

[Scottie]

Also, if you or another know and could answer a question concerning something read on SOTT the other night; an article about computer finger prints, i believe, and there was a comment about a program called TOR which was mentioned as a safe means of protecting your computer from cookies and such; read the link, but as a novice this did not resonate as being simplistic. Is this TOR something that is used extensively, is it something to look at?

I went to the site linked in that article, and basically all it was doing was checking to see what browser you are using, what plugins you have (i.e. can you play QuickTime movies?), does your browser accept cookies, is JavaScript turned on, and that sort of thing.

Yes, that info might be able to be used to uniquely identify your computer. On the other hand, only about 512,000 people had used it, so it's not surprising that it would say my computer could be uniquely identified given that there are WAY more than 512,000 computers in the world.

I walked away with the feeling that this article was one of those, "get people fired up about silly things so they don't pay attention to the important security precautions".

"Important security precautions" would be things like:

- Do not use silly passwords. If you work for Bubba's Pizza, your password should not be "Bubba123" because that is the very first thing that someone will try. All they have to know is that you work for Bubba's Pizza, which is info that's not hard to come by. Many of the security problems people had with Windows XP could have been avoided if they had simply set a password AT ALL on their account in the first place, but people just don't want to be "bothered". And then when they do set the password, they pick something completely obvious because they want something easy to remember. Check out Making Strong Passwords - And Keeping Them Safe for more info.

- Use antivirus/anti-malware software no matter what OS you are running

- If you get an e-mail from what appears to be, say, PayPal, and the hyperlink in the e-mail goes to "www.paypal.cruiser.net", then it's not a valid PayPal e-mail. It's the END of the URL that's important, i.e. "cruiser.net" in this example. A lot of pain and misery can be avoided by simply paying attention!

- Use a broadband router between your computer and your DSL/broadband modem. Routers also act as hardware firewalls which, if you get a good one, will almost negate the need for a software firewall for INCOMING traffic. You still should use a firewall to monitor apps trying to go from your computer out into the world.

- Make sure your connection is secured for banking, shopping with a credit card number, etc. That means the URI should start with "HTTPS://" and not just "HTTP://". HTTPS uses SSL, which is most certainly breakable by those in the know. But, it will protect you from the dumber, more lazy hackers out who just can't be bothered and will instead look for someone else who is lazy on security and therefore easier to take advantage of.

- Beware of security flaws in browser plugins, like Adobe Flash, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. Keep them updated because they DO have bugs, and lately they are starting to finally patch them.

And so on...

Also, keep in mind that tracking you on the internet is a piece of cake for any agencies that wish to do so. Your ISP is no doubt required to give your surfing records to any official agency that asks. Even if they aren't, there are back doors built into all the equipment that makes up the backbone of the internet. These back doors are required by law for "law enforcement purposes". They are no doubt used quite often (with a court order, of course! *AHEM*) by all kinds of groups and individuals who are up to no good.

In short, there never was any privacy on the internet!

But with a few little tweaks here and there, at least you can make yourself less of an easy target, and at least the low-level baddies will go elsewhere to get their kicks and leave you in peace.

 

[gaman]

Thank you dant for the information on Hard Drives (HD); useful to check these things out from time to time.

Also, if you or another know and could answer a question concerning something read on SOTT the other night; an article about computer finger prints, i believe, and there was a comment about a program called TOR which was mentioned as a safe means of protecting your computer from cookies and such; read the link, but as a novice this did not resonate as being simplistic. Is this TOR something that is used extensively, is it something to look at?

Thanks again. :)

Tor isn't for anonymizing (sp?) your browser footprint really. It is for anonymizing your IP address (i.e. where/what computer you are connecting from). Things such as privoxy are used to mask your footprint. And, setting these types of things up isn't straightforward for a novice but there are some on-line articles that help.

With that said however, I think Mr. Scott's advice and take on this is important to consider in your priorities of security and protection.

I walked away with the feeling that this article was one of those, "get people fired up about silly things so they don't pay attention to the important security precautions".

I got that feeling in a less strong way. I don't think it is silly for people to be aware of the many ways they can be tracked or for that project to investigate this avenue, but I like the way you have set it into perspective against other more basic concerns. :)

 

[Voyageur]

I walked away with the feeling that this article was one of those, "get people fired up about silly things so they don't pay attention to the important security precautions".

Thanks Mr. Scott, that makes sense and a friend of mine quoted at the bottom of post sent me something along the same lines regarding the article. Your other information on security seems very sensible and will go through it to ensure that I am not missing anything.

…And, setting these types of things up isn't straightforward for a novice but there are some on-line articles that help. :)

With that said however, I think Mr. Scott's advice and take on this is important to consider in your priorities of security and protection.

Thanks to both of you for your input; will try and make sure i tackle the small and initially important things before looking at things like TOR.

The web server needs to know some things about your browser to make sure it gives you the right stuff. In particular, not all code runs the same on all browsers, which is annoying as HELL, so there is often two or three sets of code paths written into some web pages. (If web sites put up web pages that only worked with one type of browser, well, you can imagine there would be lots of unhappy people).

Figuring out which code to run for your browser is accomplished by letting the web server interrogate your computer….

 

[Buddy]

Lauranimal, as your 12 days is almost up, I thought I'd mention that I found, downloaded and tried out an open-source anti-virus program that you may like to try. I'm impressed with it at this point and you can even put it on a USB drive to go scan someone else's computer (I just used it to decontaminate a friend's computer).

Here is the info with links:

ClamWin (Open-Source Project) is a Free Antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7 / Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003.
ClamWin Free Antivirus comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge. It features:

* High detection rates for viruses and spyware;
* Scanning Scheduler;
* Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
* Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer;
* Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.

ClamWin Free Antivirus is based on ClamAV engine and uses GNU General Public License by the Free Software Foundation, and is free (as in freedom) software.

Screenshots:
_http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/23/55/

Download:
_http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/18/46/


Also, you may use a pre-built portable ClamWin or follow the instructions in the guide for having ClamWin on a USB stick for use on another computer without installing.

info:
_http://www.clamwin.com/content/view/118/89/ (or follow the even easier instructions in the user's guide that comes with ClamWin.

 

[D69]

Also, if you or another know and could answer a question concerning something read on SOTT the other night; an article about computer finger prints, i believe, and there was a comment about a program called TOR which was mentioned as a safe means of protecting your computer from cookies and such; read the link, but as a novice this did not resonate as being simplistic. Is this TOR something that is used extensively, is it something to look at?

Don't bother using TOR ;)
In Utopian world it could have worked but hey , it is a wild internet :D
TOR is nice but it will not anonymize your IP address if you have JavaScript turned on. Simple malicious script on a website is able read your local IP address and its over then.
There is also dark side of TOR. Lots of people installing TOR as a server do it for purpose of data stealing. You see , every server-node (within TOR network ) is able to intercept whole traffic , so you might become a victim of a so called MiTM (Man in the middle attack) and it is very dangerous security-wise.

Using a proxy server could be a good idea at first look but then again it has similar flaws to TOR.

There is also this __http://www.googlesharing.net/ , I haven't check it yet so I cannot say anything positive nor negative about it. But it might be helpfull.

In general there is no 100% solution in security world.

Mr.Scott gave a very good practical examples.

 

[Voyageur]

Also, if you or another know and could answer a question concerning something read on SOTT the other night; an article about computer finger prints, i believe, and there was a comment about a program called TOR which was mentioned as a safe means of protecting your computer from cookies and such; read the link, but as a novice this did not resonate as being simplistic. Is this TOR something that is used extensively, is it something to look at?

Don't bother using TOR ;)
In Utopian world it could have worked but hey , it is a wild internet :D
TOR is nice but it will not anonymize your IP address if you have JavaScript turned on. Simple malicious script on a website is able read your local IP address and its over then.
There is also dark side of TOR. Lots of people installing TOR as a server do it for purpose of data stealing. You see , every server-node (within TOR network ) is able to intercept whole traffic , so you might become a victim of a so called MiTM (Man in the middle attack) and it is very dangerous security-wise.

Using a proxy server could be a good idea at first look but then again it has similar flaws to TOR.

There is also this __http://www.googlesharing.net/ , I haven't check it yet so I cannot say anything positive nor negative about it. But it might be helpfull.

In general there is no 100% solution in security world.

Mr.Scott gave a very good practical examples.

Just noticed your comment drygol - it seems like it a jungle out there, especially for the uninitiated user trying to figure things out without asking questions; glad i asked.

Thanks :)