Protection From PC Intruders
Protection From PC Intruders
Years have passed since the age of innocence in the computing world. Nowadays there exists an increasing variety of malicious software programs as well as email messages carrying them. Most of these programs can either be classified as viruses worms spyware and trojans. Amazingly one of the victims of such programs was Ed Gibson Head of Security for Microsoft UK whose PC was infected by a dialer and started transmitting such programs to other unsuspecting victims.
Before we start however here are some quick definitions:
Worms Viruses: Malicious executable code that can copy itself from one PC to another. Most of them don’t perform any other operations apart from simply copying themselves. They can however multiply like that very quickly and clog a system. The famous Internet Worm actually brought the whole Internet on it’s knees back in 1988.
Trojans: Seemingly harmless programs but not really. They can be disguised as utilities or as a system process but actually contain executable code intended for other tasks. A trojan may contain a virus or a backdoor through which an intruder can have complete access to your PC.
Spyware adware: Programs that spy on your PC and record and transmit data such as the sites you usually go to the fields in online forms you use such as your email accounts your credit card numbers and generally everything you enter in a web form. They are usually VERY poorly written programs and as such will often slow down your PC or corrupt your software. Yes if they were really good written they would actually go by unnoticed. Lucky for us most talented programmers have jobs writing real software rather than parasites…
Dialers: Programs that use your modem to dial numbers without you being aware of them. With the use of broadband connections they tend to become a thing of the past. And we’ll not deal with them in this article.
It is worth mentioning that in recent years a significant increase in the number of adware and spyware programs has been noticed with a subsequent reduction in the number of new viruses being created. This can be explained as follows: While viruses can be a serious threat and can greatly and irreversibly harm your system adware and spyware programs can actually gather very important personal information such as your credit card number and deliver that information to whoever was responsible for the attack which most of the times is the creator of the program. An effective system security tool should not just locate these malicious files on your PC but should also be able to permanently erase them.
Most antivirus programs can successfuly locate identify and remove viruses but things are not as easy when it comes to spyware and adware. There is no product in the market that can eliminate 100 of spyware. It is therefore recommended that you install and periodically run at least two antispyware programs. It would be better if at least one of your chosen antispyware programs offers some kind of realtime protection. This means that a component of the antispyware programs stays resident on your computer memory and monitors traffic between your PC and the Internet. If a web page tries to send malicious code to you or if an executable file tries to install that code the antispyware resident component will detect it and block it. You can then periodically run another antispyware program to scan your disk in case something was missed by the first program as we’ve said no program currently detects and removes 100 of spyware.
Finally it is crucial to frequently update your antispyware program or programs. New spyware programs are created all the time and it might be often that you find your PC infected with the latest spyware that your antispyware program failed to detect before you updated it. So don’t forget to update your antispyware about once a month to be as safe as possible!
About the writer: Jack Scrafford recommends PlatinumTickets to buy Boston Red Sox tickets. See http://www.platinumtickets.com/mlb/boston_red_sox_tickets.html for more information.
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