[mca] Mean's August Newsletter
- From: "Mean Drake" <meandrake@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 22:05:34 +0530
The last time I wrote about PC security was in May 2003 and that was on keeping
your PC virus free. Today the number of threats to your PC security has
multiplied and there are more problems than viruses that you should be bothered
about. This article focuses PC Security. Reinforce your defences against
malicious programs and code because unless yours is a standalone PC where you
do not connect to the internet, do not use floppies or CD ROMs and in general
do not interact with the outside world at all, your PC is at threat.
The first part of this Ezine deals PC security as mentioned above and this
article will encourage you to learn more about viruses, trojans, spyware and
the like.
The second part of the ezine is about free stuff. There?s a lot of free
software available and with the rising costs of the large programs like
Photoshop and MS Office, which have features that an average user doesn?t even
utilise, these free programs are an excellent alternative. I shall try to
provide a small list of free software under main headings. The list is not
meant to be exhaustive but instead is a collection of what the average PC user
might need.
For those of you who feel your friends or relatives might benefit from this
newsletter, feel free to forward it to them and let them signup for it too at
www.meandrake.tk
Till next month...
Mean.
Reinforce your defences
By Mean Drake
mean@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
This month has been eventful as far as computer security is concerned. First it
was the blaster virus that showed people that you need not click on email
attachments to get infected. You could get infected just being online,
something I have always believed would happen one day. Luckily the blaster was
a relatively benign virus. A more malicious programmer could have written
things to take over your computers completely. The second has been the attack
of the Sobig.F worm over the last few days. It is unbelievable how many people
just don?t bother to run up to date antivirus programs. The sobig worm, at
least for me was a nuisance rather than a threat to my PC. But it should not
have been even that much if people were more careful. I am sure most people
reading this are already aware of this but I would really like you all to pass
on this to your friends and others who you feel need this advice.
There are various types of threats that you have to face in day to day
computing. Let me enumerate them and discuss each one separately.
Viruses
These are of course the most well known. In fact so well known that everything
that is damaging is called a virus. Trojans are different and we shall discuss
them separately below. Viruses most commonly but not always spread through
email. Before the days when the internet was such a household name, the
preferred way of spread was infected floppy disks. Now most virus writers don?t
even bother to write code to infect floppies and spread this way.
Trojans
Trojans are malicious programs designed to give the appearance that they are
useful programs. A trojan might even be made to look like an antivirus tool.
But these programs, unlike viruses, leave a backdoor open on the computer so an
hacker can take advantage of this and access the computer with full control
over the files.
Worms
These are programs that propagate themselves over the network. Most mass
mailing viruses like the current Sobig.F virus can be defined as worms.
Prevention
There is no single magic bullet that will let you stay clear of these three
threats. A multi-pronged approach is needed. It will be beneficial to follow
the following guidelines, which too are by no means an exhaustive list.
1. Be wary of all email attachments, even those from friends and relatives.
2. Never open files with double extensions. An example would be
mypicture.jpg.scr. Here the initial impression would be that it is a picture
file but it is really an executable scr file. You should always enable windows
to show you extensions for known file types. The most braindead thing windows
did was hide these by default and users never learnt about what extensions are
until they ran into problems.
3. Keep abreast with security patches. Both of the operating system and of the
browser.
4. In Internet explorer, you can use custom security to turn off things like
ActiveX, Scripting, Java controls etc. Of course functionality gets lost to
some extent but then the choice between fun and danger will always remain in
all scopes of life. A workaround here is to add sites that you want to have fun
on to the trusted zone so here you don?t lose functionality too.
5. Beware of Office documents like doc and xls files as these can have macros
in them. Keep macros in Office disabled unless you need them. Or at least keep
security to medium so it will prompt you for macros in new files.
6. Use a good antivirus program and keep it up to date.
Spyware
The internet has now produced a new generation of programs defined as spyware.
With the increase in e-business and more and more products being sold online,
every internet user is a potential buyer. It becomes more important for
companies to get user information and to target advertisements of products at
users who are likely to click on them. I am most unlikely to buy anything to do
with Victoria?s Secret so it would be a waste of their resources to have their
ads flashed at me. More and more ingenious ways are being devised to get user
info, track them online and probe in to their personal data. In a majority of
the cases, the computer per se is not prevented from functioning though this is
not always the case.
Symptoms that you have been hit by spyware are not always present. Some of the
warning signs are:
1. Sudden change in your home page or default search page.
2. New entries in your favourites.
3. A new internet explorer toolbar that you did not download.
4. Internet activity taking place when you yourself are not browsing or
downloading.
Many of the free programs that are available online in some way or the other
try to install some components that will display ads or compromise some
personal data. The download manager Go!zilla was the among the first to come
under fire for this. Kazaa is widely used by people blissfully unaware of
components it installs. The list is too long to enumerate here. The spyware
list at http://www.tom-cat.com/spybase/ as of today produced a total of 944
results. You can refer to this page before installing software, specially free
software.
Prevention of Spyware infestation is not too easy. The difficulty lies in new
techniques that people think of to penetrate your defenses. In general, the
steps you should take are as follows:
1. Increase browser security as described above.
2. Download software carefully. Make sure that the freebies you use are safe.
3. Keep an anti-spyware program installed and updated. It need to run all the
time in the background. After all you cannot run too many programs in the
background as it would to some extent affect system performance. Good programs
are Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy though many more are available.
4. Use a firewall. This brings us to the last section of this article.
Firewalls.
Firewalls
Once on the network, whether it be the LAN or the internet, the computer is
available for other users to see. People experienced in doing so can easily
access your computer and get to see, edit and even delete files. Hacking is not
so uncommon as one would think. The older operating systems like Windows 95 and
Windows 98 were very easy for hackers to get into. The newer systems with
Windows 2000 and XP are more secure and more efforts are needed to break in.
However it would be better to not only use a more secure OS but also use a
technology that would keep hackers out. This brings us to firewalls. There are
two types of firewalls. Hardware and software. Hardware firewalls are devices
with a built in set of instructions that can be configured to act as guards to
our internet connection. I plan to discuss here software firewalls which are
simple for any home user to install.
A software firewall is a program, much like any other program you install on
your computer. The program starts up with Windows and acts as a intermediary
between the computer and the internet. All data going in and out flows through
it. The firewall is therefore in a position to prevent uninvited access to your
computer as well as can prevent programs from sending out data. Any program,
that is not supposed to send out information to the internet, or one that you
didn?t even know existed on your computer would be picked up by the firewall
and you could decide whether its net access is legitimate.
Being in such a critical position, firewalls have not expanded their functions
and can now act as watchdogs over email (preventing incoming viruses), unwanted
advertisements online, running of malicious scripts etc. They can block access
to open ports on the system as well as prevent running of hostile scripts.
The common firewalls (I do not plan to compare them this time) available today
are:
Outpost (Free and Pro)
Zonealarm (Free and Pro)
Sygate Personal firewall (Free and Pro)
Tiny Personal Firewall.
Norton Personal Firewall
Kerio Personal Firewall
McAfee Personal Firewall
Blackice PC Protection
Windows XP Built in internet connection firewall.
Summary:
Online security is an important concern today and following the guidelines
provided here should take you a long way in making your computing safe and
secure.
Freestuff
by Mean Drake
mean@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
There is a lot of free stuff available on the internet. A lot of free software
too. As discussed in the first section, many of these free programs have their
drawbacks. My aim here is to provide names of only software I know to be
reliable and free of such spyware. If I am mistaken, please feel free to mail
me.
This is a short section that just will list out free replacement programs for
the commonly used applications that are very expensive. Equivalent
functionality might be missing but these expensive apps have features that home
users might never use. So free equivalents are more than sufficient. The list
is not exhaustive. This is just a listing. Products have not been reviewed
here.
There are of course other categories and lots of free stuff available. But
these are utilties that most systems should be happy to have to start with.
CategoryProducts
Office SuitesOpenOffice, 602 Pro PC Suite
Picture Viewer and EditorIrfanview, XNView
PDF readerAcrobat Reader
BrowsersAvant Browser, SlimBrowser, MyIE, Mozilla, Opera(Ads), Netscape
Email ClientsEudora (Ads), Pegasus, Incredimail, Calypso 3.3
Newsgroup readerFree Agent
ChatMSN, Yahoo, AOL, ICQ, Trillian
File SharingMost have either spyware or security risks, I personally do not
recommend. Flame me :-)
Form FillerAI Roboform
FirewallsOutpost, ZoneAlarm, Sygate
AntispywareAdaware, Spybot S&D
Zip file handlerZip Genius
System toolsjv16 PowerTools, PC Inspector file recovery
Security and EncryptionPGP 8.0
Music PlayersWinamp, RealOne
There are of course other categories and lots of free stuff available. But
these are utilties that most systems should be happy to have to start with.
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