Spyware & Antivirus Program Reviews » Articles

Why should I use VPN?

admin — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:40:32 +0000

There are many reasons to consider browsing anonymously and through an Anonymous VPN, not just to access porn or log onto Second Life as the opposite gender. It’s your financial information and career that could be at risk.

Consider what would happen if your boss came to know your home IP address and searched the Internet for your postings and online activities by IP address. Or worse yet, if your boss’s competitor, or your competitor tapped into your confidential online business communications.

Owning your own business means you are a primary target for industrial espionage – and most small businesses never think twice about their communications security. The vast majority of espionage, worldwide, is for economic and business data, trade secrets, buying patterns, economic and financial patterns. One ill-advised email that can be traced back to you could sink your company.

With Christmas around the corner, last minute shopping online is inevitable. But are you sure that your credit card or paypal details are safe? It’s highly possible that your credit card details land on a hacker’s hard disk before it reaches the merchant’s bank.

With the growing issue of government intrusion into private affairs, both personal and economic, Personal VPN and anonymous surfing has become even more compelling. Google recently handed over the IP address of a user of its blogging software to an Israeli court after the author was accused of slandering Israeli politicians. Yahoo has been heavily criticized for handing over details about its users to the Chinese authorities that have led to the jailing of three people who criticised the Chinese government online.

The only solution to all these problems is anonymous browsing with Virtual Private Networking. VPN Serviceprovides you a shield of encryption against spies and hackers; and hide your real IP address for anonymous browsing.

Apart from the security aspect a Virtual Private Network also lets you access restricted websites in your country or company. And unlike web proxies Virtual Private Networks are much faster and reliable.

Top of antivirus software programs which will make you life easier

admin — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:26:25 +0000

This is the first in IT Security’s periodic list of free security tools. Be aware that these are by no means all the anti-virus tools on the market. For example, this list does not include major anti-virus vendors that provide paid individual and enterprise solutions. However, that does not mean that the included anti-virus tools are not worthwhile — the best of them are as good as paid programs. In the interest of listing tools that can help in a moment of crisis, this list only includes tools that can detect, clean, remove or neutralize viruses. There are also tools to scan a local hard drive, as well as those that can accept a single uploaded file and indicate whether it is infected with a virus. Of course, if a file is small, an easy way to check it for a virus is to send it to yourself via a free email service like Yahoo! Mail, Gmail or Hotmail, which scan all file attachments.

Wherever possible, this list includes just those sites that are the originator and main site for that particular engine. Some online anti-virus scanners have private-labeled their engines to third parties, but these engines are not always up-to-date or as good as the original.

In the future, IT Security will compile a list of free downloadable antivirus tools.

A-squared: The A-squared malware scanner looks for for Trojan horses, backdoors, worms, dialers, spyware/adware, keyloggers, rootkits, hacking tools, riskware and tracking cookies. However, it only works inside IE (Internet Explorer) with ActiveX controls enabled.

BitDefender Scan8 Online: BitDefender is a complete online anti-virus scanner that appears in a new window. It requires IE to function.

Command On Demand Scanner: Another straightforward online virus scanner that requires IE and ActiveX controls.

The ESET Online Scanner: This online antivirus scanner from ESET also requires ActiveX and IE.

Computer Associates CA Anti-Virus: The free online version of CA’s anti-virus program requires ActiveX and IE.

Ewido Networks Anti-Spyware: Ewido Networks has an online anti-spyware scanner that is a predecessor to AVG Anti-Virus; it also requires IE and ActiveX.

Freedom Online Virus Check: One of the very few online scanners that works with both Firefox and IE. Firefox users will need to install a Java-based scanner, while IE users will need to activate ActiveX controls The service’s engine is based on the F-Prot scanner.

F-Secure Online Scanner: Another scanner that requires IE and ActiveX. It also checks for rootkits.

Panda ActiveScan: Based on the popular Panda virus scanner, the online version also requires IE and ActiveX.

Windows Live OneCare: Microsoft’s online virus scanner is based around its new Windows Live technology — and yes, this service too is only compatible with Internet Explorer with ActiveX controls enabled.

Trend Micro HouseCall: A smarter online scanner than most, Trend Micro’s solution detects browsers and installs the appropriate piece of code needed, whether it’s Java or ActiveX. The service is based on TrendMicro’s popular anti-virus engine.

Note that leading anti-virus vendors McAfee Inc. and Symantec Corp. have rich online scanning tools, but these services do not actually remove detected threats.

Useful tips how to get rid of spyware

admin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:10:22 +0000

PC on the Internet are constantly attacked with harmful viruses and other malware, and as a result users have antivirus protections in place, including antispam applications for use against the new viruses in your e-mail box. It seems like just when everything appears to be in control, there’s something new that your computer has picked up, perhaps an application running silently in the background to collect reports on the history of your computer use.

The better kinds of ad and spy applications simply monitor your activity for their own information. They’ll track you to the sites you visit in order to gain information about Web surfing trends to better their marketing outreach. Not so bad. But other types of applications go beyond regular tracking and instead watch for patterns in keystrokes to develop possible password possibilities; this could be a real risk to security. So how does one rid themselves of these unscrupulous little programs? It’s often easier to prevent spyware than detect and remove it – at times just attempting to remove these programs can render other share and freeware applications useless.

Below find a list of some steps to take to find and remove spyware applications from your computer system:

* Be careful what you download! If looking for a specific patch or shareware download, it’s often a good idea to use trusted sites. Download.com and tucows.com are some sites with a good reputation.

* Have a careful look through the EULA (End User License Agreement), past all the fine print and legalese that we agree to when clicking the ‘I Agree’ to terms button. A closer look and you may find you’re consenting to spy activities. You may want to breeze through the contract with an eye out for unacceptable terms.

* Read the information before you click. When visiting a web site, or when a pop-up box of text appears on screen, the user tends to get lazy and just click the box to dismiss it before really taking the time to listen to the message. Although a pop-up wouldn’t call anything ’spyware,’ it may ask for your consent to something similar that you don’t want.

* Protect the entire system. Antivirus applications today are a misnomer. Other kinds of bad code round out the total threats which we want to be protected from. Now ‘trojans,’ ‘worms,’ and ‘hoaxes’ are new forms of adware. For protection in real-time, try AdAWarePro or another product.

* Scan the system regularly. Antivirus and other firewall protection is wonderful, but even then, at times the spyware gets through. In addition to AdAWare, Lavasoft makes more inexpensive solutions including the free ‘Spybot Search & Destroy.’

Follow these steps to keep unwanted spyware off of your computer system.