| Welcome to Security page! regarding spywares/malware/trojans/adware/phishing and other security related stuff. |
| In recent years, spywares and other nasties has become more and more sneakier and lurks (dormant) on our computers. If something is not done to keep them off the Net and off our computers, it will get worse and worse. There are few good tools to search and detect these nasties. First I will give definition of each nasties and type and what it do to your computer. Spyware - program that is installed on your computer and can send personal indentifying information back to the mother ship (server host). Examples of these programs: keyloggers, illegal monitoring software and many other types. Sometimes trojans acts like spyware as well. Alot of times they are planted on the computer oftentimes with out the knowledge of user. Adware - program that display ads UNAUTHORIZED! There are legit adware such as in Incredimail and old versions of Juno. Example of this would be all those popups you get they are what I call adwares cas you have no clue as to which site will do that to you. They are very annoying. In Firefox, you can have adblocker and it works really well. Trojans (trojan horse program) - program that appears legit but in reality is doing something else. It can/could install backdoors on your computer and hacker/cracker can remote access your puter and can use your computer to send spam (zombie machine). Oftentimes without user knowledge. Malware - malicious software that could/can destroy or do some very serious damage to your computer. Some people will have to reformat their hard drive. Browser hijackers - hijackers that takes over your browser like Alexa or About:blank changes your homepage entries w/out your knowledge and do anything changing or adding entries in system (registry) files. I once spent 4hrs removing about:blank hijacker off my sis's laptop and trust me it is pain in the butt to remove if you don't have proper utilties to remove them and use tools that goes into the system registry files. Many times all of above parasites can do anything on your computer and often times you are not aware of it being download. There are tools that keeps all of these nasties at bay in addition to using antivirus program. Adaware SE Peronal Spybot Search & Destroy Cwshredder Hijackthis - a program after you have use previous scanners including Microsoft Antispyware (works on XP and Win 2000 and Vista only) scans to see if there remaing hijackers/keyloggers and other parasites. Program is for advanced user only. If you are not advance user of computers, have someone who have more experience look over the log after you ask program to scan and save log. There are also variety of tools to prevent these infernal parasites: AVG antivirus (free) AVAST antivirus (free) A2 Squared (anti trojan/worm - free and you can use it on Win 9x/ME) Spyware blaster (free) Zonealarm Personal (free for personal use) Sygate Personal Firewall (free for personal use) Program that keeps the system clean and clean up: CCleaner (free) - a program that wipe out stuff and fix the registry issues. Registry Mechanics (trial and it only fix limited issues) Phishing - sites that pretends to be legit companies or impersonate legit companies in order to steal personal information such as passwords, account IDs, user names etc in order to commit fraud and identity theft. Some people are easily fooled cuz phished sites looks so real almost exact copy of the legit site. Tips: 1. Enter the address directly into the browser if email seems suspicious. 2. Legit sites/emails will NEVER ask you for your account ID or password and same they will never ask for personal information such as username and passwords in legit emails. 3 If email looks suspicious, just delete them as you would for every spam you get in your email box. Companies are aware of probs of phishers misrepresenting them and impersonates them. Above tips should work and if you are using web based email such as Yahoo or Gmail it will go directly into bulk folders after you label and reported them as spam. Botnets - collections of puters in a network that can be control by hackers/crackers/spammers to do damage or send spam to other people. Similar to Zombie computers. Page created on April 21, 2005. Edited and revised on Feb 23, 2007. |