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Viruses have already become the biggest curse of the internet world, affecting millions of internet users and other business communities. Hackers, Spammers- whatever names you choose to call them, these programmes termed as malwares, have sown the seeds of fear and doubt in the minds of the general internet users. Privacy and security are the most affected segments and to escape from the hassles of the viruses,Up-to-date anti-virus software is essential for all PCs, particularly those that connect to the internet. It helps to prevent viruses, worms and other malicious software infecting your computer. It scans new files and emails, and regularly checks existing files and folders for abnormal behaviour. Computer viruses are a sickness that every computer user encounters sooner or later. In fact, viruses are just one example of a whole group of nuisance programs which are known as malware. Types of malware include,Viruses which like their biological counterparts, these are programs that infect a computer (by various methods) and then spread to other computers when infected files or disks are exchanged,Worms which are similar to viruses but are carried on the Internet and can spread from one computer to another by themselves, with no need for a user to assist the process by giving someone an infected file or disk,Trojans so named after the Trojan Horse of mythology, these are programs that pretend to be harmless and useful, but which in fact do something sinister, like plant a virus in a computer,Spyware that is nothing but a software that tracks your online activity or monitors your keystrokes and sends this information to a remote server,Dialers which are programs that are downloaded to your computer from a web page, which then steal money from you by dialling premium rate phone numbers, Hijackers which are little programs that are usually infiltrated on to your system via email or your web browser, which then hijack your browser settings by (for example) changing your default home page setting.

Viruses, worms and trojans cause a nuisance just by spreading their infections, but most of them also do something else, known as the payload. The payload may be something innocuous, like displaying a message or changing the system colours, or it may be something destructive like deleting files or formatting the hard disk. This payload often isn’t activated until the virus has infected your computer for a while (giving it a chance to spread) so the fact that you haven’t noticed anything unusual doesn’t mean your computer is necessarily in good health.If your computer gets infected, whether the payload is harmful or not you want to get rid of the virus as quickly as possible, so as to remove the risk of it spreading to the computers of your friends and colleagues.The only sure way to get rid of a virus is to use anti-virus software. Some viruses can be removed manually, but different viruses need different removal methods and by the time you’ve found out the correct procedure a software virus scanner could already have done the job.

In a few cases, the virus scanner may not be able to cleanly remove a virus from a file, and the file may be left corrupt and unusable. In this case, your only option is to restore an uninfected copy of the file from software installation disks or a backup.

A good backup system is by far the best safeguard against losing data due to the action of a virus (as well as other disasters). But it must work hand-in-glove with the regular use of a virus scanner, otherwise your clean backup files could be replaced by infected ones before you realise your system has a virus.It’s better to prevent a virus from infecting your computer in the first place, than have to remove one after it has. Therefore, it’s worth paying close attention to virus prevention measures.

The best all-round system of protection is to install anti-virus software and enable on-access scanning (this is usually enabled by default.) This will work silently in the background, checking files for the presence of viruses. You need not worry about it until it detects a virus and raises the alert.

However, you must remain conscious of the need for virus protection to the extent of remembering to update your virus scanner regularly. These days, daily updates are not too often! New viruses are constantly appearing on the scene, and despite the claims of software vendors, virus scanners are not very good at detecting viruses they don’t know about. Updating is the only way to maintain your virus scanner at top effectiveness by ensuring it knows about, and can detect, all the latest threats. Trusted and reliable anti virus programs include McAfee, Norton Anti-virus, AVG, PCCillin, Trend-Micro and many others. Anti-virus programs work on continuous updates of anti-virus definitions and thwart new viruses by managing to keep a few steps ahead of them.

There is no single way to stop spam, nor is any email account bullet-proof from it. Spammers will always be there, and it’ll just be a matter of time before a new email account gets bombarded with it. The most effective way to get rid of spam is to make spammers’ tasks in obtaining your email address difficult. Here is how to effectively get rid of spam, or at least reduce the chances of getting it.

Do you ever wonder how spam gets into your mailbox? Well, a lot of spammers use “bruteforce” or send a huge volume of their spam to random email addresses. Most of these spammers send mail using lists of accounts gathered from the Internet. The majority of the spam you get come from the websites where you use your email address as your means of identity. These may include sites or services that you’ve previously visited or signed up for. You may also have posted your email address on blogs and forums.

Make it Difficult

To make your email address hard to find, you must avoid posting your email on free-to-access websites. If you really need to post your address though, disguise it. For example, if your email is “johnsmith@smith.com”, write it out as “john smith [at] smith [dot] com”. A person who reads this disguised version will still be able to understand it, but automatic programs that spammers use to harvest emails will not be able to detect it.

Dupe it

Most services on the Internet, especially free ones, require that you provide an email address as a means of identification or contact line to inform you about certain matters. You can’t tell if that website sells their email list to spammers or not, despite claims of having secure “privacy policies” and the sort, so it is better to use a “disposable” email address.

It is common to have more than one email address today, so simply make an extra one and use it when signing up for services. Avoid using your work or personal email address. Create a new email account using free email providers like Gmail, Yahoo!, or Hotmail. When have a separate account, if ever it gets bombarded with spam, it is a different account, and you won’t get annoyed deleting it from your main email. When you feel you don’t need it anymore, you can either leave it alone or deactivate it. You don’t even need to bother checking this email account for new messages, since you only provide the address to websites and forums as a log-in, and not to your friends or work contacts.

Mind the Fine Print and Check Boxes

To further minimize spam in your email, make sure to read the fine print. Oftentimes, you unknowingly consent to spam being sent to you because you didn’t read the policy of the services you sign up for. You will know when there is a possibility you will be receiving spam if you read something about third-parties being provided with your personal information (such as email address) to offer you promos or newsletters. If you do read anything of this nature, think twice. You can either continue and sign up for the service or search the net for a different site that provides the same service. (If you do sign up, you may want to use your disposable address.)

Often, you do not need to find a different site just to avoid spam. You can usually opt out of those “promos” or “free offers” by unchecking those check boxes that are checked by default. These check boxes are usually small or hidden. In the end, read through the policy, no matter how long and technical it may seem, and be careful of those check boxes - don’t just check anything or everything.

The Spam Trap

No matter how careful you are, and how sophisticated anti-spam measures are, spam may somehow still find its way into your email. The best thing is to select all of those junk messages and dump them directly into your trash folder. As a general rule, never open or even REPLY to spam messages. Doing that may scream to the spammer that your email account is real, therefore triggering more spam to be sent to you. It is better to be safe - if you don’t know the sender, then it probably is spam.

Signs that an Email is Indeed Spam

You do not have to open a message to determine if it is spam. Usually, you can easily tell it is just by looking at the subject of the message. Here are some of common signs that you should look out for:

* The word “Free” is there.

* It says you’ve won something (money, gadgets, etc.), even if you don’t remember signing up for a promo.

* It contains something to do with sex, prescription drugs, or jewelry.

* Bad grammar or spelling.

* Weird characters or letters.

* Job offers.

* Discount or wholesale items being sold.

The Dangers of Spam

You may think that spam is but a simple marketing attempt to sell you something, but spam can actually be dangerous. A seemingly harmless message may contain malware: either a virus, a trojan, or spyware that can put you and your data at risk.

Most modern viruses spread through email through an attachment. Once activated, it can steal sensitive information from your computer and use your computer to spread more viruses. Spyware can track your activities online, like the websites you visit, the bank accounts you access, and a lot more.

A newer threat that is also used in spam is phishing. Phishing is a method where a spammer designs a message to appear as a authentic-looking one, pretending to be from a bank, an online shopping site, or money transfer services. It aims to steal log-on information and other personal details by exploiting the computer system, usually through XSS or cross-site scripting to make it look authentic.

Spam today is not only an annoyance, but it also carries potentially harmful elements. Common sense and the use of anti-spam measures will not only lessen the junk in your mailbox, but also protect your privacy on the Internet.

OK, show of hands: Who out there has spent loads of money on a nifty antivirus solution for their company-you know, the kind that makes all sorts of promises as to the safety you will enjoy, the effectiveness of their antiviral software, the fieriness of their firewall, so on and so forth-only to be infected a short time later? I think it is safe to say that most of us have been there, furiously trying to figure out how to clean the virus off our machines-a virus that our new super anti-viral solution can’t seem to handle-without having to reformat the hard drive, reinstall Windows and then reinstall everything else. The question is, why?

The answer, of course, is that antivirus solutions work in much the same way as medicinal vaccines: They only work on known viruses. In other words, a given antiviral solution will protect you against an old virus, something the solution has a definition for. That can be useful, since once a virus is “released into the wild” it can linger on the Internet for years, posing a potential hazard for new machines coming online. The real hazard comes from the viruses that are being released today, viruses that have not been isolated, studied and defined.

The Failure of Traditional Antiviral Solutions

Antiviral software began its rise to prominence back in 1993, when viruses were passed from one computer to another via infected floppy discs. With the advent of the Internet to general use in 1995, the development of virus forums and kits, spyware and adware, worms and trojans; and the move from viruses being experiments or vandalism to being a big-money criminal activity, the scene has changed dramatically. Now, 15 years later, the traditional antiviral approaches are simply not effective. They just can’t keep up.

Yet we rely on this technology, always hoping that this latest version will do the trick and yet, more frequently than we’d like to think, that latest version fails. It has to fail, the odds are simply overwhelming. In 1989 there were about 30 known viruses, today there are over 200,000 with more coming online every day. To make matters worse, new viruses are tested against the latest antiviral software to make sure it can get through. Not all of them, perhaps, but certainly the major ones like Norton and MacAfee.

Given that the approach of antiviral solutions has traditionally been to close the barn door after the horse escapes, it makes sense to try an alternative way of dealing with the problem that closes the door before the horse gets out.

The Alternative: Whitelisting

The traditional antiviral (and anti-malware solutions in general) approach is to blacklist suspicious programs and keep them from working. In other words, it is supposed to identify and kill the virus. As we have seen, this only works when the solution can see the virus for what it is, a fact that leads to a high failure rate.

To address this shortcoming, a switch should be made from blacklisting suspicious software to whitelisting trusted software. In this scenario, new programs (and viruses and other malware are programs) are either entirely prohibited from operating or are placed in quarantine until they are considered trustworthy. By maintaining a strict whitelisting strategy, you could easily reduce your malware threat to next to nothing.

Lumension Security came up with this in 2000, when it became clear to them that no matter what antiviral solutions businesses were using, they were still being hit by viral attacks in ever increasing numbers. Designed to protect networks, their Sanctuary Application and Device Control suites, which were previewed at the 2004 InfoSecurity tradeshow, are proven, end-point security solutions that control both applications and peripheral devices through the use of whitelists.

Sanctuary operates by calculating a cryptographic hash for each approved executable file. This 20-byte signature, generated using the state-of-the-art SHA-1 algorithm, serves to identify the file itself instead of weaker attributes such as a file name or date. Each and every time a user wishes to open an executable, Sanctuary performs an instantaneous signature check on the file to ensure its authenticity. If even one bit is incorrect, the file will not be allowed to automatically execute.

That means a file piggy-backed to an e-mail or smuggled in on a downloaded image from a website will be prevented from running since it is not on the whitelist of acceptable applications. It also means that the sales manager’s teenage son can’t install something he downloaded onto his mother’s computer or plug an unauthorized peripheral device into the machine. This enhanced end-point security and IT policy enforcement are two additional reasons why whitelisting technology is something to consider.

The Weakest Link: People

The sad truth is that the majority of data losses come from within the company firewall, from employees. This isn’t a big surprise; it has long been known that people are the weakest link in any security-related situation. According to the FBI, 15% of people are totally dishonest, 5% are totally honest and the rest fall somewhere in between. Honesty, however, does not always translate into responsible, much less intelligent. Yep, people do foolish and irresponsible things.

From an IT security point of view, these foolish and irresponsible things are usually done in complete innocence. They include downloading unapproved software or installing such software from a disc, plugging strange devices, such as a USB thumb drive, into their computer, just to see what it is; and other, similar activities. By employing a whitelist solution that covers both hardware and software, you mitigate problems caused by well-meaning but irresponsible employee activities.

It will also protect against those with a plot to steal information. If an intruder, whether they come from within your company or from the outside, cannot plug in the media they brought to copy data-thumb drives are the most often implicated technology here-then they cannot easily steal the data. True, there are other ways of stealing data but none that leave so little evidence.

The Bottom Line

Considering the amount of money that is lost to malware and physical data loss each year, it makes sense to get serious about getting rid of this kind of threat once and for all and protect yourself with technology that does not have to play catch-up with the malware it promises to stop. Whitelisting, as demonstrated by Lumension, is a very effective way to accomplish this and an approach you should consider for your business.

Identity theft is a real threat. It occurs when someone obtains credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, bank account information or other pieces of private information and uses them to commit some sort of fraud or deception, usually for financial gain. Identity theft specific laws are those that were designed and enacted to criminalize the act of identity theft. False Identification laws deal specifically with fraud in connection with personal identifying documents. Identity theft is a serious problem affecting millions of people each year. It involves acquiring key pieces of someone’s identifying information, such as name, address, date of birth, social security number and mother’s maiden name, in order to impersonate them.

Unfortunately one of the easiest ways of collecting the information required for identity theft is via your computer. Your computer is effect by software often referred to as malware sometimes called adware or spyware. Adware is often spyware, because it will follow your activities in an an attempt to foist tailored advertising on you. If the adware just displays adverts without collecting info on your surfing interests, it may be considered pure adware rather than spyware. Adware is software integrated into or bundled with a program. Spyware refers to a broad category of malicious software designed to intercept or take partial control of a computer’s operation without the informed consent of that machine’s owner or legitimate user.

Protect your data from malware and intruders. While junk files, fragmented drives, and a tangled registry degrade your computer’s performance malware will allow criminals to steal your personal information

Adware is a software application that displays unwanted banner ads or pop-up windows with ads. The justification for adware is that it helps recover programming development cost and helps to hold down the cost for the user. Consumers get a helpful piece of software for free because of the sponsors. But in many instances adware can be a form of spyware that collects information about the user and passes it on to third parties, without the user’s authorization or knowledge. Silent background use of an Internet back channel connection must be preceded by a complete and truthful disclosure of proposed back channel usage, followed by the receipt of explicit, informed consent for such use. Any software communicating across the Internet absent of these elements is guilty of information theft and is properly and rightfully termed as spyware.

Most suspicious spyware installs itself into internet explorer. Internet explorer is the default browser in your Windows OS and is generally the most unsafe browser out here. I highly recommend installing the Mozilla Firefox browser which contains no back doors and will cause you not trouble with annoying adware, unlike internet explorer. In addition Firefox is faster and the features and user experience is way better. Mozilla Firefox is a Google product and is free.

Getting rid of Adware programs should be as easy as going to Add/Remove Programs and simply removing the offending program. Unfortunately, it usually takes something more to remove the bad adware. This is why Adware removal software exists. A very good anti adware, malware and spyware application is called Spybot S&D. The company has been running since the year 2000 and is an established business. Best of all is the application is free to use!

Here are 7 tips you should take to heart for the security of your computer and the data it contains.

1. Always make backups of your documents and other important information stored on your computer. There is always the chance that malware can damage your operating system beyond repair. Take heed. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

2. Keep your Windows operating system updated with the latest security patches from Microsoft. Windows is the most popular operating system on the planet, and consequently it is the favorite target of hackers. Also locate and install patches for your Office programs.

3. Install a software or hardware computer firewall. There are no excuses for neglecting this one. If you are using Windows XP it’s built in. Go to the Security Center and make sure it’s enabled. If you do not have a firewall, viruses, worms, trojans, malware and adware can all easily enter your computer via the Internet.

4. Install an antivirus program and use it! Your computer is under a constant threat while online. Make sure you have the automatic update feature enabled, and schedule it to update virus definitions on a daily basis. You can also schedule scans with most antivirus software. I have mine set to scan every night.

5. Turn off your computer and disconnect it from the internet if you are not using it. Hackers can’t attack your computer if it’s off line.

6. Refrain from opening e-mail attachments. Don’t do it even if you recognize the sender. I use the delete button judiciously.

7. Don’t run programs from unknown origins. Be especially careful with P2P sites, shareware software, and freeware applications.

Follow these tips and your computer will run longer and have fewer problems.

FACT: Chances are your machine is hosting spyware. There are currently over 78,000 Spyware and Adware programs on the Internet that can infect your PC.
Here are 9 warning signs you should be aware of, if any of them pertain to you then your PC is most likely infected:

When you start your browser, the home page has mysteriously changed. You change it back manually, but before long you find that it has changed back again.

You get pop-up advertisements when your browser is not running or when your system is not even connected to the Internet, or you get pop-up ads that address you by name.

Your phone bill includes expensive calls to 900 numbers that you never made-probably at an outrageous per-minute rate.

You enter a search term in Internet Explorer’s address bar and press Enter to start the search. Instead of your usual search site, an unfamiliar site handles the search.

A new item appears in your Favorites list without your putting it there. No matter how many times you delete it, the item always reappears later.

Your system runs noticeably slower than it did before. If you’re a Windows 2000/XP user, launching the Task Manager and clicking the Processes tab reveals that an unfamiliar process is using nearly 100 percent of available CPU cycles.

At a time when you’re not doing anything online, the send or receive lights on your dial-up or broadband modem blink just as wildly as when you’re downloading a file or surfing the Web. Or the network/modem icon in your system tray flashes rapidly even when you’re not using the connection.

A search toolbar or other browser toolbar appears even though you didn’t request or install it. Your attempts to remove it fail, or it comes back after removal.

And the final sign is: Everything appears to be normal. The most devious spyware doesn’t leave traces you’d notice, so scan your system anyway.

In terms of PC security, antivirus protection is an absolute must-have. It doesn’t matter how a computer is used, and even if it doesn’t have direct access to the web, it’s still vulnerable. Wireless networks, all kinds of external data storage devices interact with computers, raising the risk of it getting infected with a wide variety of subtypes of known malware. While almost every PC user is supposed to have heard about the importance of antivirus protection, few ever thought about the power of web-based anti-malware scanning services, yet they have quite a number of advantages over conventional stand-alone security applications. Some of the pros are listed below:

1. Online virus scanners cannot be corrupted by malware which often is capable of destroying the scanning engines of Windows-based antivirus programs. In fact, the more popular a software is, the more prone to attacks it is. Malware coders aim to defeat their main enemies - conventional antivirus applications. Since online scanning services keep their engines and signature databases stored on remote servers operated by big software vendors, they are guaranteed to work flawlessly and reliably.
2. Even if Windows installation routine is destroyed by a virus, there’s no influence on the functions of online services. Since scanning and detection algorithms are operated from outside of the computer, and there’s no need to install anything into Windows, online services may be the last resort for may PC users.
3. Typically only one antivirus application can be installed on a computer at a time. If there are two or more AV products, they are likely to cause conflicts and start “fighting” each other trying to kick the competitor out of the memory. With online virus scanners, it is way different; you can try as many of them as needed, choosing from over a dozen of reputable and highly respected names, not to mention the combo-services which feature joined databases from several AV manufacturers.
4. No licensing issues; online virus scanners are free to use by any computer user in the world. They cannot be stolen, pirated or used illegally. Cleaning the infection is not illegal in any way, is it?

The most evident drawback of online virus scanners is their inability to set a PC security shield; however, they are not meant to act like that, and should be used for additional detection capabilities when desktop software fails to perform as expected, or when you need another opinion on you computer safety. This is where web virus and spyware scanning really over delivers.