Thursday, May 2, 2013
One of the main misconceptions is that all hackers are bad and that they are all out to steal our information for personal gain. The truth is that most hackers are not evil, and there are organizations of hackers that are Good, Bad, Neutral all of which exist for their own purposes. They have their own names that classify these groups, and I will go into these and explain what their purposes are. Just keep an open mind while reading this article.
Types Of Hackers
Black Hat Simple Answer - Bad
There are 3 types of hackers all that have their own purpose those groups are White, Black, and Grey Hat. These groups operate for their own purposes, and we only know of the Black Hat group which would be Anonymous. A black hat group is a group of hackers that hack for personal gain and have no real morals to doing it. They are doing it for personal gain, and they don't do anything constructive. For instance anonymous takes down important sites for NO reason. While they think it is fair for their own gain they do it for the wrong reason. They do it in a protesting manner which puts them under the Black Hat group. To make it simple these are the bad guys.
Grey Hat Simple Answer- Neutral
The Grey Hat group is a group of hackers who generally hack for sport and do it for fun. They don't generally work with other hackers because their goals are very modest like checking the safety of their site. They might also hack a game on their computer to give them unlimited everything. The thing to remember about this group is that they don't hack for gain but for sport this is what separate them from the other two groups.
White Hat Simple Answer- Good
The Third and final group of hackers are the White Hat Hackers these are the ones who work and find exploits in software and hardware to report to companies to make them better. These are not well known, and it is a very large group that is growing in this era because of the growth in technology. They are also paid very handsomely to find exploits in servers and websites to protect the company from many forms of hackers. Because thousands of accounts, websites, computers are hacked daily.
There is the group of people who claim to be hacker because someone did not log out of a computer and they got onto their Facebook account. THIS IS NOT HACKING. This is the reason the term "hacker" is so misused.
Hacker is defined as:
Noun
An enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.
A person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
Getting into your friends facebook account is not hacking. Anyone can do that now if you created a keylogger and captured their keystrokes and logged on from your computer, that is hacking. That is not legal but that is hacking. The term hacking is being misrepresented and it gives a lot of "hackers" bad names because they are the one who actually hack you just did a simple task to get into their Facebook account.
Then There Are Those People
There is the group of people who claim to be hacker because someone did not log out of a computer and they got onto their Facebook account. THIS IS NOT HACKING. This is the reason the term "hacker" is so misused.
Hacker is defined as:
Noun
An enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user.
A person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.
Getting into your friends facebook account is not hacking. Anyone can do that now if you created a keylogger and captured their keystrokes and logged on from your computer, that is hacking. That is not legal but that is hacking. The term hacking is being misrepresented and it gives a lot of "hackers" bad names because they are the one who actually hack you just did a simple task to get into their Facebook account.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
You want a secondary scanner because no 1 antivirus program can keep you safe from every threat it is completely impossible. You can't expect a company to do that either it would be insane we would need thousands of technicians and programs scanning every website every IP, and it would be chaos. To make an example out of this. Does a sports team ever go in without a reserve? NO they always carry a reserve why? Because if one gets injured then they are out. The same thing applies to malware scanners you need more than one.
Below Is the list that you are looking for.
- HitmanPro- http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/
- Panda Active Scan- http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
- Malwarebytes- http://www.malwarebytes.org/
- Super AntiSpyware- http://www.superantispyware.com/
- Bitdefender Quick Scan- http://quickscan.bitdefender.com/
- Norton Power Eraser- http://security.symantec.com/nbrt/npe.aspx
- Kaspersky TDSSKiller- http://kaspersky-tdsskiller.en.softonic.com/
- McAfee Stinger- http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/stinger.aspx
- Trend Micro House Call- http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
- Eset Onlne Scanner- http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/
- Dr.Web CureIt! - http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/
All of these are working as of the time of this post.
A second opinion malware scanner is one of your best friends in the world. No but seriously a second opinion malware scanner is something that everyone should use but most don't. Many people believe that since they an antivirus program that they are safe from malware completely without question. Then they end up on the phone with Geek Squad asking "how do I remove this virus"? To which the Geek Squad member replied "you need to buy the newest Microsoft office". The only way to stop malware is to avoid bad sites, but having some already and not knowing is the worst thing that you can do to your computer.
What Is A Second Opinion Malware Scanner?
This is basically a scanner that you have on your computer that offers no protection, but scans for malware to try and find what others miss. These are so crucial especially when there is such as spike in malware distribution you need to make sure your computer is safe. Now these scanners don't replace an antivirus program but they are crucial to have around for the safety of your computer. The amount of malware in the world increase by thousand's daily whether it is a different variation or an entirely new type of malware all of them are bad.
Why Do I Need A Secondary Malware Scanner?
You want a secondary scanner because no 1 antivirus program can keep you safe from every threat it is completely impossible. You can't expect a company to do that either it would be insane we would need thousands of technicians and programs scanning every website every IP, and it would be chaos. To make an example out of this. Does a sports team ever go in without a reserve? NO they always carry a reserve why? Because if one gets injured then they are out. The same thing applies to malware scanners you need more than one.How Many Should I Use?
Well I say use 2 in conjunction with your main antivirus. This will reduce your chances of getting controlled by malware and possible destruction of the computer. You could lose everything if you don't get rid of the malware then it causes Windows to crash at launch, and this is something that you don't want. You should run them weekly or daily depending on how active you are on the computer and what it is you do. Run them if your computer has a strange slow down or there is an unusual slowdown of your computer.Tuesday, April 30, 2013
There are a lot of people out there who think that it is necessary to pay for an antivirus program, but the sad truth is that is not true at all. While paid programs do offer more protection the average user won't do anything that a free program like Avast, or Ad Aware couldn't handle. If you are business then yes pay for the extra protection because there is a lot of vital information on those computers, but the home user does not need it. People think that if it is free it is not effective but the sad truth is on tests the paid version does score slightly better sometimes but most of the time they are EQUAL.
Why Is Free Antivirus Good
To make it simple when it comes to protecting your computer from malware such as viruses and trojans a free program is effective to keep you safe. You also don't have to shell out the money to pay for the license of the paid version. To make it simple when an antivirus program scans your computer is looks at what the file is doing and sees if it is in the database. A paid program and a free program still have access to the exact same database so why pay. While malware is evolving and becoming more complex there are a lot of free programs for your computer that save you money and are just as good.
Paid Comes With More Features
That is true a paid program does come with more secure features, but let me ask you. Do you know how to use those features? If yes then the offer might entice you. But if you don't you are taking their word thinking it is more secure even though you have no clue how it works. While the features are nice you don't need them for a home user. When will you need to configure your own custom firewall and block ports? Most people don't know what that means or how to set it up. So it is not necessary for you so don't waste your money on it.What Should I Do Then?
You need a good combination of firewall and antivirus. So I have a guide that can be found here on that but below I will give you a basic set up that I recommend.Avast Free Antivirus- Really good protection simple and comes great right out of the box.
Online Armor Free Firewall- One of the best firewalls in the industry and comes with a lot of nice features to protect your computer.
Spyware Blaster- Does not provide protection, but they update the program to add unsafe sites to your block list.
Links
Spyware Blaster- http://www.brightfort.com/spywareblaster.html
Monday, April 29, 2013
Adware one of the most commonly misunderstood form of malware right next to the common virus. The issue with Adware is people try to assume that they know what it is but the thing to keep in mind with Adware is it rarely comes alone. When it comes to malware Adware is one of the most common types but it is generally coupled with a form of malware such as a Trojan or spyware. None of these will break the computer, but they are annoying and can get some information about you if you are not careful.
What Is Adware
Adware is a form of malware that as it title says is meant to get revenue for the creator in the form of ads. Now they are generally harmless depending on the ad agency that they used but many of them can get your private information. Most forms of adware come in the form of a toolbar. This is because they can easily integrate into your web browser making it really easy to display the ads. They are generally shown from some sort of java code so turning off java should end the ads but we want to get rid of them permanently.
Removal
This is very dependent on the type of malware that you have on your computer. If it is a toolbar then that is very simple to remove and I have explained that in an article which is located here. But what if this is not a toolbar and is a file. This is where it gets to be annoying, because we either have to find the file its self or use a variety of malware scanners. Since it would be to difficult to diagnose every type of adware that there is and where it is located we will use scanners to do the work for us. But you must first ask yourself have I downloaded anything recently? If so what was it. Generally adware is contracted through some sort of download so first look at every program that you have downloaded. If it is not from a trusted company such as Microsoft or adobe then LOOK THEM UP. Chances are that is where the malware is coming from.Now let's say that your malware is some form of file and not a program. I am not going to force you to look through folders and thousands of files. That would take hours, and it is just unnecessary. So we will be using scanners to do all of the real work for us. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the links to the scanners. Use HitmanPro first this will probably find all of the malware first and it does not require you to install it.
Protection
As always you should have antivirus and a functioning firewall for your computer. I have written a guide on protecting your computer from malware. The guide is located here and gives you free recommendations to protect your computer.Scanners
HitmanPro: http://www.surfright.nl/en/hitmanpro/
Panda Active Scan: http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Super AntiSpyware: http://www.superantispyware.com/
Bitdefender Quick Scan: http://quickscan.bitdefender.com/
Use This One At Your Own Risk. The power eraser is very sensitive.
Norton Power Eraser: http://security.symantec.com/nbrt/npe.aspx
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