Remember to Practice Safe Computing!
By Joe Amaral
Your PC is slow… real slow. Every time you startup or login you get tens of popups, lots of traffic is headed outbound even when you’re idle and the PC has become almost useless because of the slowness. What is wrong? The bad news is that your PC is most likely compromised with some form of a Worm/Virus, SPAM, ADWARE/SPYWARE and/or other Internet attack. What can you do about it and how can you try to prevent it from reoccurring? Easy – just follow my tips below.
Ok, so now you have an idea why your PC is soooooo slow. How did it happen? You try to be proactive and practice safe computing. You have a firewall (right?), a virus scanner (right?), are somewhat careful opening emails, browsing the web and installing programs. What went wrong? The problem is that today the bad guys have become better and better at getting around the rudimentary roadblocks that worked a year or two ago and unless everyone who uses your PC is conscious of the dangers you will get infected and compromised.
Below I’ll briefly describe the threats and then some tips on how to protect your PC.
1. VIRUS/WORM: Suffice it to say that neither of these you want on your PC. They are scary anywhere, but they can be downright costly on your hard drives! There is a difference between a worm and a virus, but all we really care about are what these bad boys can do. And they can do some very bad things like delete files, shutdown your system, consume disk space/memory and waste all your network bandwidth.
What can you do about Viruses/Worms? If you already have an antivirus software solution please make sure it is up to date and you have downloaded the latest virus definition files. If you do not have an antivirus software package – get one now. They range from relatively inexpensive at ~ $40.00 for the major vendors (McAfee, Norton, Trend Micro) to some free offerings like AVG’s free edition.
2. SPAM: What is more annoying then hundreds of emails about magic pills, questions asking for your bank account #s (phishing) and get rich schemes from Nigeria? In one word - nothing. Beyond finding them and taking the SPAMMERS to court for millions -- good luck finding them! -- then your only options are to use common sense (remember if an offer is too good to be true – then IT’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!), good practices (never REPLY as it just validates your email address and you’ll get even more SPAM), run an email security scanner (see:
http://www.windowsecurity.com/emailsecuritytest/) to see how infested you may already be and – yes – invest in antispam software (SPAM KILLERS). Most Anti-Virus packages now bundle SPAM protection, so make sure you have a reliable package and it is up to date.
3. ADWARE/SPYWARE: Spyware/Adware may have started as some benign marketing idea to capture a consumer tastes/shopping preferences, but some of these nasty guys have morphed into programs that grab what you type (key stroke capture) and can be used to steal your identity, credit card information and system passwords. It’s getting hard to find a PC that does NOT have some form of spyware/adware somewhere on the hard drive.
What can you do about ADWARE/SPYWARE? Avoid clicking YES to any popups unless you are absolutely sure you trust the source (Hint: those popups saying they’ll clean your PC of spyware/adware – won’t do anything but give you lots more). Also you should consider investing in anti-SPYWARE/ADWARE software – these run from free to $40.
4. INTERNET ATTACKS/TROJAN HORSES: If you’re connected to the Internet without any protection (Firewall) than you are very susceptible to having your PC attacked and controlled by some nasty people or HORSES. Yes… horses. Trojan Horses are programs that masquerade as another program or can even be embedded inside of another legitimate program. This is one of the most common forms on Internet attacks and they can be very malicious by deleting files (or your whole hard drive), send private information out to the bad guys and even shutdown your system.
What can you do about Internet attacks/Trojan Horses? Ideally you would have your firewall device built into your router and between your Internet connection and your PC(s). If you are directly connected to the Internet and do not have any protection (hardware router/firewall) then you will need to invest in a separate software firewall for each PC connected to the Internet. Most of the major vendors have PRO editions of their anti-virus solutions that “bundle” a PC firewall and the latest releases of Windows (Vista/Windows 7) include a firewall. Make sure it is enabled and avoid allowing too many exceptions into the firewall.
Another important tip we give to our small business clients and home based business clients is to isolate your children from the PC that you use for business or other important tasks. Kids gravitate to the flashiest sites (Spammer are marketers and they know how to get “clicks”) and will often click YES to popups. And we don’t want that. This also gives you a nice justification for buying that nice fully-loaded laptop you’ve been thinking about.
Will doing all of the above guarantee that your PC will never be infected or compromised? No, but these steps will certainly help and not practicing safe computing just about guarantees a slow and potentially a compromised PC.
Joseph Amaral is president of The Amaral Group (TAG) www.amaral.com, headquartered in Somerville, MA.