If you encounter a virus attack, do something at once to prevent the spread of the virus to your system. First, concentrate on the kind of virus to remove the malicious code. There are tools which are available online tailored for that specific virus causing the damage. Next is to see the range of the damage done. If the operating system is completely destroyed, you will have to reinstall. This can be done by using the quick restore CD that comes with your computer. But before you start the process, make sure that you have the necessary information like licenses, registration and serial numbers available. Then do a thorough virus scan of your network. Be sure your anti-virus software is recently updated and that your security patches are up-to-date to prevent future attacks.
Guide to Latest Anti-Virus
Technically all computers all over the globe suffer form the attacks of computer viruses, Trojans and malicious software – from home-based units, small and medium-enterprises to giant business and even government bodies. The bottom-line is that the internet is a fertile land to do crimes. It only means that a considerably large amount of money can be illegally made from creating these viruses and distributing them over the network.
The damage done by these viruses and malware can reach to billions of dollars every year. And according to some research made by Computer Economics, the lost in the world economy is close to $18 billions and is having the trend towards a growth rate of 30% to 40% annually.
by: Christine Zafra
Mozilla is known is known for their Firefox browser’s ability to install different patches, language supports, skins, add-ons and the like. However, users of Firefox with the Vietnamese language support has complained that they have received unusual and unnecessary ads through pop-ups. Mozilla was quick to warn that this is not a result of a virus or a back door hack, but their program itself has coding problems. They said that those who have download the Vietnamese language pack since February 18 is surely infected by it. They are not currently working with a new Vietnamese pack and it will be available some time soon. Mozilla has advised everyone who has this pack to disable first the language in their add-on tools.
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by: Christine Zafra
Do you have media players in your computer? How about Real Player? If you do, then better check if you have an updated patch for it. Most Real Players still have the unpatched version, thinking that it won’t really do no harm if they don’t patch it. However, a recent report showed that hackers found a flaw in the unpatched version of the Real Player. The Active X control rmoc3260.dll that allows the person to play media over internet browsers has been the prime target of drive-by downloads. This is the most vulnerable part of the player since this DLL file allows automatic download from websites (even third parties).
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by: Christine Zafra
Are you a member of the social networking website called MySpace? They’re boasting millions of users and you might be one of them. Just a tip though, if you have received a friend request from someone you do not know, do not even try to open the profile. If the thumbnailed picture shows someone you’re not familiar with, then, reject the friend request in an instant. There are some malicious profiles that automatically downloads Trojans to your system if you click on the picture or any link on that profile for that matter. Common sense works best here.
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by: Christine Zafra
Kraken, the largest botnet (collection of bots that run things automatically) was revealed by researchers. They said that in this network, a total of 400,000 computers are infected by a malware, including computers from 50 Fortune 500 companies. What is disturbing is that, only 20 percent of the computers with the different anti-virus products can detect the said malware. Kraken is said to have the ability to change its code base, and that is the reason why most anti-malware and anti-virus products cannot detect it. This bot copies itself to other machines automatically when executed by another machine (auto bots).
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by: Christine Zafra
Hackers are definitely becoming more and more adept in permeating the internet world. Google, one of the top search engines, was victimized by these (should I say brilliant?) hackers. They tried to redirect legitimate websites such as ZDNet Asia and other CNET sites to malware sponsored sites to victimize other internet users. These hackers used different keywords (placed a wide range of searchable keywords in their websites) for search engines to find. If their websites’ popularity is high (by hits, Alexa scoring etc.), it will appear as the first website on every search a person does.
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by: Christine Zafra
Who would ever think that Symantec and Trend Micro, two of the most well renowned anti-virus companies are having problems in terms of their security’s vulnerability? Symantec discovered that their Decomposer engine actually has flaws and it affects some of their products such as Microsoft Exchange, Mail Security and their anti-virus for storages attached to networks. This said vulnerability was discovered when they tried to process a RAR file and it was able to penetrate the system. They were fast enough to act anyway, releasing a statement for system administrators to update their security softwares and explaining how they’re going to do it.
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by: Christine Zafra
If you think your computer’s already safe because you’ve got the most expensive anti-virus on the planet, better think twice. These anti-viruses have flaws too, and due to the proliferation of computer viruses online, some of them take days to add the virus to their virus vaults. Another is that, most virus makers are just smarter than these anti-virus companies. The latest in the anti-virus world is that, virus authors now encrypt the virus inside a RAR file. As we all know, files with RAR extension are supposed to be extracted. It has the same purpose as the Winzip, however, RAR files can bypass anti-viruses.
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by: Christine Zafra
When mom bought my iPod a year ago, I was surprised that the brand new iPod came with something else: a virus. I cannot call it a bargain since I did not benefit from the “freebie†(the virus) my iPod gave me. However, a thought dawned on me: how can an iPod, one of Mac’s products, be infected by a virus? I searched on the internet and true enough, I was able to read a news stub about the iPods released some time in 2006 had viruses attached to them. Perhaps Macintosh used Windows operating system to program the iPod? I don’t know. All I know is that both operating systems do have different platforms (so a Windows virus should not be inside a Mac product!).
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