I’ve been scouring the web the past couple days looking for the most popular stories/rumors/news/facts and have compiled a list of some bullet points I thought the readers would find interesting to read.

Check out some of these cool facts and tidbits, they make great conversation starters and are cool oddities to know to increase your computer protection/user knowledge!

• Jessica Biel recently was named the most “dangerous” celebrity to search on the web.  Research has shown that her name/pictures/videos/screensavers come attached with the most amount of malware and viruses.  I guess her good looks come at a cost. (Brad Pitt was the previous name holder and now holds his spot in second followed by former ex Jennifer Aniston)
• The recession has created a further rise in cybercrime around the world.  Apparently, the more attention given to prevent local crime as well as world terrorism takes away efforts to prevent cybercrime. Social sites have also given more room for these criminals to increase there electronic scams.
• The United States was ranked the 28th fastest in Internet Connection Speed.  A report by the Communications Workers at America said the top download speed is in South Korea with an average of 20.3 mbps.the US average is 5.1 mbps.  Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands hold the next three spots following South Korea respectively.

I hope you enjoyed the tech gossip from this week, submit your own gossip via our ASK button.  I’ll try my best to include all the submitted stories!

When anyone remotely can access your computer at any time, you don’t have a firewall. It seems time after time; I am lurking around malware removal forums here at WhatTheTech or GeeksToGo, to find that a lot of users are missing a firewall. Even basic firewall protection is better than nothing.

I was on my XP test box a few weeks ago, and turned off the firewall and started browsing bad websites, and started downloading neutral programs. By the time I was done with that, I had acquired such a mess, as nine Trojans, and 4 spyware programs. One of the Trojans was a downloader of malware. My machine was not shot, as I was able to remove/delete all of the threats. A normal user cannot do this, and needs the assistance of malware experts who can help remove it.

After I had removed the malware, I restarted my computer to find it back to normal. It was fine, and running smoothly. I turned on Comodo Firewall, and again browsed bad websites, and downloaded bad programs. First of all, the bad programs would not start, because Comodo had a lock on them. Whenever I went to double-click on one, an error popped up, and said: “you do not have sufficient privileges to start this program.” The title-bar was labeled as “Comodo Internet Security.” The firewall event log had over 20 events of just those ten minutes of browsing bad websites. 20 events of threats trying to enter my system, I knew Comodo protected me.

Although hardware firewalls are much better, software firewalls are what I am talking about today.
We will start with the tested best of the best. Tallemu Online Armor. The personal edition is just as good as the Pro. Features boasted include keylogger protection, autoruns management, mail and web filter, anti-spyware, and HOSTS and DNS checker. The only reason why Online Armor did not score a 100% on the tests is because they were not able to stop viruses from executing via internet query.

Then, Comodo Firewall is the next impressive piece in software firewall technology. Its technology is much different than most firewalls. It boasts its features as Defense+ HIPS protection – which alerts you when an application is not on the list of good applications, Defense+ is also considered Anti-spyware, highly extended firewall policy. Although they offer antivirus protection, the firewall policy stops viruses in their tracks. The only reason that Comodo did not score a 100% was because of the inability to stop bots from being queried on a machine.

The last one I will review is ZoneAlarm. ZoneAlarm boasts full stealth mode, protection from hijackers, OS file protection, MD5 (program key) spoof protection, rootkit detection, and dynamic inbound/outbound protection with hyper threat checking.

What all three of these have in common is they deal with threats. They all have a specific protection that is different than each other. Tallemu Online Armor, and Comodo firewall both had anti-spyware protection, but ZoneAlarm did not. ZoneAlarm has rootkit detection, whereas Tallemu and Comodo do not. Firewalls are one of your best Operating System Defense Weapons. You can be secure from most online threats by using a firewall. The three reviewed above, are the most protective and the highest rated. All three protect from severe threats, and all three passed rigorous testing on blocking threats.

Phishing is criminally fraudulent robbery of personal information through the basis of cracking or asking for passwords. Its tactics are a subcategory of those related to identity theft. Instead of personal one-on-one telephone calls, every single employee of the gross companies have access to the Internet where they can control up to millions of people with the simple click of a mouse. I remember, and maybe you do too, back when AOL had a serious crisis where users were being asked to give out their password. Information was stolen and money was gained for the gross companies.

Myspace.com is by far one of the most common targeted phishing networks in the phishing world today. Users click links in other Myspace profiles that lead them to a look-a-like Myspace logon page, but were not on Myspace–instead it was a scam page where if users entered their information, their password was now in the hands of the evildoers. Myspace users recognized differences and noticed that they were not the ones making changes to their own account and posting advertisements via messaging and commenting other friend’s profiles. A world of confusion was created for Myspace users. This tactic is an example of Social Engineering, a way to manipulating or tricking users to “sell” or “hand-over” their personal information.

Not to say that it is over yet, as Facebook and Twitter are starting to see this action take place. The ICCC is well aware of this and will take action if necessary.

Identity theft is a crime. It is also an Internet crime. Complaints are filed at the Internet Crime Complaint Center http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Do not let pop ups and other distractions, like emails bother you. ISPs, banks, etc never ask for passwords to be entered by email.

Are you sure of your safety? SonicWALL has posted a quiz: http://www.sonicwall.com/phishing/ to see if you are properly protecting yourself from Phishing threats and what you can do to further your knowledge.

Check out the top pair of trusted geek computer protection software and make sure you have these two on your computer. I have some inside information that our beloved head geek and owner of What The Tech runs this same combination!

The first of the dynamic duo is:

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware- also abbreviated MBAM. It is a great tool in detection and removal of minor to more dangerous and compromising malware. “Using Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is like bringing an M4 to a knife fight.” It’s been very well noticed that this program tries to monitor processes before they are run to stop malicious activity before they occur. Download the program, install and start the program! It’s as simple as that.

It’s partner in (fighting) crime:

SUPERAntiSpyware – also abbreviated as SAS. This program has a strong anti-spyware system as well as it is great at detection of other trojans, dialers and my personal favorite; keyloggers…etc. It’s run very soft on system resources so even users with the most basic setups can feel confident about running the program in the background. With a easy to use interface, it’s highly recommended by geeks everywhere so download your copy today and get it up and running!

It’s pretty shocking how terrible these anti-virus giants (Norton especially) are on your mainframes.  While only offering sub-par protection at best, they hog immense amounts of system resources, in particular: RAM.  Most computers are not equip with large amounts of RAM, thus slowing down the performance of the average machine.  It makes tasks like checking email quite tedious exponentially increasing time.

I highly recommend a number of free options as well as one market standard choice.  These programs use very little RAM and do not bog down the processor…

Nod32- The one non-free anti-virus I’m actually a fan of. “ESET delivers the fastest, most effective and most proactive antivirus and antispyware software solution to eliminate viruses, spyware, adware, worms, trojans, rootkits and other malware before they attack your system. Nobody does proactive protection better than ESET!” It does deliver on its promise.

Avast AntiVirus- is a wonderful solution for free for home, noncommercial use. The program works with both popular Windows Operating Systems (XP and Vista)

AVG AntiVirus- has both free and pay versions but the free version does fine for most non-commercial use!  It protects against virus and spyware and best of all, it updates on its own!  It has to be one of the best auto-updating processes I’ve seen from any anti-virus.  It updates at startup and you’ll never see it again…so say goodbye to annoying boxes that flash red while you’re playing your favorite online game or chatting with a loved one!

Try these alternatives out and find out how much it speeds up your computer.

For many of us, the handy icon shortcut on our desktop is what we’ve come to rely on for our recycling needs, but others seek out the actual physical location on the C drive.

The folder resides at C:\Recycler but it is a hidden/protected operating system folder so there are settings that need to be changed before you are able to view it.

Here’s some simple instructions to get to the folder:

1. Open the My Computer Folder

2. Click on Tools/Folder Options and open the View Tab

3. Uncheck “Hide Protected Operating System Files”

4. Go back to your C:\ drive (or whatever main partition you are using where your operating system is located)

5. Look for C:\Recycler

Enjoy!

The Anti-Spware Coalition defines spyware as the following:

Spyware: The term Spyware has been used in two ways.

In its narrow sense, Spyware is a term for Tracking Software deployed without adequate notice, consent, or control for the user.

In its broader sense, Spyware is used as a synonym for what the ASC calls �Spyware (and Other Potentially Unwanted Technologies).�:

Technologies deployed without appropriate user consent and/or implemented in ways that impair control over.

• Material changes that affect their user experience, privacy, or system security;
• Use of their system resources, including what programs are installed on their computers; and/or
• Collection, use, and distribution of their personal or other sensitive information.

This is HijackThis version 2.0.2 (the latest version) after scanning your system.

#3 is the new AnalyzeThis button:

Clicking AnalyzeThis will redirect to this page:

No where on the AnalyzeThis landing page does it inform that your HJT log data was just to be transferred to Trend Micro, or provide the option to opt-out of data submission. The only clue is a link titled, “stats on your log file entries”. Which contains mostly useless information on the popularity of your entries. Would you have any idea that HJT log data had just been transferred to Trend Micro?

What about Trend’s Quick Start Guide? No, just this:

3. Once the scan is complete, click the AnalyzeThis button. A web page will open containing helpful information regarding HijackThis.

Maybe the Frequently Asked Questions? No help, not even a mention of AnalyzeThis.

Excerpt from Trend Micro End User License Agreement :

5. REPORTS AND PRIVACY. At any time during the term of this Agreement, You may
choose to send to Trend Micro a report of log files that may include personal information
that the Software scanned on Your computer. By accepting this Agreement, You hereby
give Your consent to Trend Micro to process log file data provided by You (”Information”)
in connection with this Agreement; processing may include collection, registration,
storage, modification or disclosure of such Information to third parties. As a condition to
using the Software and by accepting this Agreement, You ensure, represent and warrant
that You are legally permitted to provide Trend Micro with access to the Information and
You also give Your consent to Trend Micro to transfer or store the Information in one or
more of its group companies, located in and/or outside the country where You are
located, and/or in jurisdictions which may have a lower level of protection of Information
than is applicable in the country where You are located or where pr
ivacy laws may not be as stringent as those in Your own country.

WhatTheTech (formerly TomCoyote) is no stranger to HijackThis. Our Quick Start Guide was included in version 1.99.1:

Trend Micro’s version 2.0.2 of HijackThis is currently supported by WhatTheTech in the forums. The Vista support and other improvements make it a necessary tool in some instances, and there are frankly few other good alternatives (although some are in development). Unless version 2.0.2 is requested or required by a Vista installation, we recommend the continued use of HJT version 1.99.1.

While technically the license agreement does address the data collection, we encourage you to contact Trend, and encourage them to stop the deceptive behavior with HijackThis. Due to the nature of the software, they should be extra careful to disclose any privacy concerns. Transparency is the issue. There should also be a clear warning when any data is about to be transferred, and an option to opt-out of all data submission.

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