Posted by Luke | Posted on 30-09-2009
Category : Security
Tags: Anti-Virus, Computer, Microsoft, Removal, Security, Windows
If you are a windows user – then please read on – this is something that you need to be aware of! The Malicious Software Removal tool (MRT) is a little piece of software heaven for windows users that is not talked about very much. We are all aware that Windows computers are the most vulnerable systems to attack from viruses and malware. Now while everyone does their best to avoid these pesky bits of software that are out there this doesn’t mean that you still won’t fall victim to one every now and then.
I’m sure that by now you have all had the moment where you’re anti virus program spits out at you that you have a virus or some sort of infection on you’re system, now letting the anti-virus deal with it is all well and good, but adding this malicious software removal tool could save you a lot of pain.
My suggestion would be to let you’re anti-virus do it’s job and attempt to delete the infection, but after this is done add in another step. Due to the fact that virus authors are becoming more and more switched on to ways to exploit your system it makes it harder and harder to actually get a virus off your system.
The next step that I’m speaking of is to run the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Now for all Windows users this is actually something that is sitting right there on your computer, in fact Microsoft updates this on the 2nd Tuesday of every month (the same way it does with software updates). To find this program, go to your start menu. There is a ‘run’ selection, press on this. In the window that pops up search for ‘MRT’. This will launch a program, one this has loaded it will prompt you with a few selections – these are ‘quick scan’, ‘full scan’ and ‘custom scan’. For the purpose of locating and removing malicious software you will want to do a full scan. Note that this may take several hours depending on the size and speed of you’re computer.
This will locate and hopefully remove any malicious software that is on you’re computer, and may in fact save you from the need to do a complete system re-store. Now what if you can’t find this on you’re system, well the MRT is available from Microsoft’s website for download, follow the few quick prompts. This is a fairly small download and is under 9Mb in size so there really isn’t any excuse for not using it.
Well I hope that this helps out in determining if you’re anti-virus really is doing its job, while giving you a little extra piece of mind in knowing that you’re system is safe!
Posted by Luke | Posted on 26-08-2009
Category : Internet/Tech, Security
Tags: GPS, palm pre, Privacy, Security
This scary news was discovered recently by a software developer, as the story is noted on the PreThinking states that the most recently released phone from Palm (the Palm Pre) was found to be sending somewhat critical information back to Palm. As we move into an environment where more and more of our mobile devices are becoming smarter we are generally aware that these devices may be more susceptible to nasties like viruses and malicious activity. Little do we expect that we will be spied on by the manufacturer of the product we are using.
The palm device has been gathering data such as GPS information from throughout the day, apps being used, time the apps are used for and what apps are actually on the device. This information has been sent back from the device to Palm over the mobile internet capabilities of the phone.
For a lot of the time this information may already be known by the phone company as they could presumably figure out your location based on what mobile towers your phone is using, but the negative thing about the whole situation is that the actual manufacturer of your device knows all of this information as well. Information like where you live, places you regularly visit, where you work thats scary stuff considering the manufacturers of other items you use don’t have access to this – imagine your fridge telling its maker where it lives!?!?
On the plus side, there have been no reports of any activity like this on smart-phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry or Google phones here in Australia. So for the time being we can rest assured that our info is still safe as the new Palm device isn’t available here yet.
All consumers of tech products should be quietly thanking all of the smart ‘geeks’ out there who notice things like this, they are the ones with the knowledge to notice these activities and make it known to the wider community. Lets hope they keep up the good work – for our sake
Posted by Luke | Posted on 22-07-2009
Category : Security
Tags: effective security, internet, password, protection
The password that we key into our email, instant messenger’s, bank websites and online accounts are often the only thing protecting our (for the most part) very personal and private data whether it is as simple as our address, or as potentially dangerous as our credit cards, tax file numbers and so on. So it is very important that we make this line of defence as hard for a hacker to crack as possible.
In this post I will have a look at a few simple things that you can do to really strengthen your passwords. A lot of the hints and tips that are put out there involve you creating passwords that are so hard to remember you just don’t worry about creating stronger passwords anymore. Now the first thing that I will state and it is pretty common knowledge, that your password shouldn’t ever be a dictionary word! In fact don’t even let it be a string of letters – these passwords that contain only letters are very easy to break.
My next tip here is something very simple but incredibly effective, something that I have put into all of my passwords and I find it an easy way to remember a rather ‘complex’ password. My thought here is to take something that you can easily remember, it may even be your current (dictionary word) password. For the purpose of this exercise lets use the word password as our password.
You can make this incredibly weak password infinitely more secure by simply replacing certain characters with symbols on your keyboard that look the same as the letters in the current word. These symbols may be as simple as ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) < > ?.
After substituting some of the letters with these symbols we may have a password that looks like this: p@s$word
Now because we have broken up the dictionary word (yes I know it still contains a dictionary word but will look at this next) by putting in symbols it would take a significantly bigger effort for the hacker to break this, while remaining easy for you to remember because it still looks and nearly reads the same as the actual word.
Now lets make this a little more secure! Don’t forget about the numbers on your keyboard either, 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 are also good to be substituted or put into a password to make it harder to break. After substituting again we might have a password that looks like this: p@5$w0rd. Notice I replaced the first s with 5 and the o with a zero. To read and remember it is almost the same as the original but for someone to try and guess or use hacking software it is almost impossible.
Do yourself a favour and change your passwords to include some of these tips today! This will significantly improve your peace of mind while using the net and protect all of that important data that is out there.
