According to Kaspersky Labs (www.kaspersky.com) the number of malicious software programs focusing on mobile devices more than doubles between August 2009 and December 2010. Some of these new threats are for the new “Android” platform, with 15 total programs targeting it.
The most common tactic that targets mobile devices is to use SMS Trojans. By enabling SMS messages to be sent without the user’s consent, evil-doers have direct access to their funds.
A new particularly nasty piece of malware has infected over 1.5M websites. The “LizaMoon” SQL Injection Attack began Tuesday and is being tracked by the Websense tracking site. Such attacks generally exploit poorly written websites with weak security. Please take care to not visit sites with illegal downloads, adult content, or other questionable material unless you are aware of the risks.
To keep your computer running optimally takes a bit of discipline. You have to be diligent about maintenance. Things like doing your best to avoid viruses, defragmenting your hard drive, and removing software that is no longer needed go a long way towards this goal. In this article let’s learn the connection between malware and computer speeds, and of course prevention.
Protecting yourself from viruses and other malware
Proper virus protection involves several factors. One of the biggest of these is simply avoiding risky behavior. Another is having proper anti-virus software.
Avoid Risky Online Behavior
Some examples of risky behavior include downloading files illegally and viewing certain adult websites, and file sharing sites. It is very easy for your computer to get infected by, for example, a computer game that you or someone in your household downloads. The game may seem safe, but it can have what is called a “Trojan” running in the background. These Trojans can do many things, including eating up lots of computing power, thus making your machine slower.
Similar things can happen when you visit an illicit website. It can trick you into downloading a malicious file, even though you think you are downloading a legitimate file. These files can sometimes be very difficult to get rid of, and they also can potentially slow down your machine, by running code in the background. A common trick used by some sites is to have a file transfer automatically start while you are on the page. It seems innocent enough, but once downloaded and executed, it can wreak havoc on your PC’s operations. They might also use your machine to send out spam mail to others, which will slow down your actual internet speeds, as well as your computer’s internal operations.
Use Good Anti-Virus Software
In addition to exercising common sense to prevent malware, it is good policy to also run a good Anti-virus program. This is slightly counter-intuitive, as running an extra program, even one this important, will slightly slow your machine. But it is so important that I still recommend it to my clients, and readers. Fortunately, you do not have to pay lots of money for anti-virus software, and many quality ones exist hat are free. Examples include “Microsoft Essentials”, “AVG”, and “Avast”.
Conclusion
Keeping your computer free of viruses is a very important component in keeping your machine running in top condition. Exercise common sense in how you behave on the internet, and make sure you have a good anti-virus program on your machine, and that it is up-to-date. In the next article, we will talk about how defragmenting your hardrive, along with other system maintenance checks, can help speed up your computer.
This will be an easy primer on the major types of malware (viruses, are, in fact, only one potential danger to your system), and how they work. The rise of malware is quite remarkable. Some viruses, for example, have been known to spread to tens of millions of computers in mere months, and even bring mighty Microsoft to its knees. Very interesting, when you consider that most malware is actually quite simple to engineer.
When you listen to the news, you hear about many different forms of electronic infection. The most common are:
Viruses – A virus is a small piece of code that literally infects another program, much like actual viruses infect cells in our body. It can then use the execution of that larger program to replicate itself to other machines.
E-mail viruses – Similar, e-mail viruses are attachments to emails. Some e-mail readers have vulnerabilities that allow attachments to execute arbitrary, potentially malicious, code upon viewing.
Trojan horses – Are less sophisticated, at least in terms of how the subterfuge is carried out. They are simple, ordinary, every-day programs with a key difference: They simply don’t do what they claim to do, or do things you didn’t know they would do. An example might be a program that you download might contain a keylogger (makes a record of each keypress, then transmits the data to some shady character, all without you knowing) , that will allow others to steal critical information from you, like passwords and social security numbers.
Worms – A worm is a type of malware that uses security vulnerabilities in networks to replicate itself. It begins in one location, scans any computers nearby for ones with “holes” in their security and firewall, inject itself there, and begin the process again.
Now you know the basics. Have more questions? Contact us. We are happy to answer any questions you may have. 972.781.0011
The way kids entertain themselves has changed a lot over the past few decades. There was a time when having an atari 2600 in your house was a nice, safe, way for your kid to have fun, indoors. But now we have Xbox, Cable in ever room, and, of course, The Internet.
The Kaiser Family Foundation published a few findings:
* 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).
* Because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’ (using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into those 7½ hours.
* TV remains the dominant type of media content consumed, at 4:29 a day, followed by music/audio at 2:31, computers at 1:29, video games at 1:13, print at :38, and movies at :25 a day.
* Three-quarters (74%) of all 7th-12th graders say they have a profile on a social networking site.
* 7th-12th graders report spending an average of 1:35 a day sending or receiving texts. (Time spent texting is not counted as media use in this study.)
Amazing. Clearly we need to take a few steps to help children navigate through this brave, new, digital world.
1. Set rules and limits. If these are not given, a kid *will* often spend all of their time on the Internet, and TV, etc. Some of the time, of course, would probably be better spent socializing and exercising.
2. Install Internet filtering software. his is software that blocks offensive sites, that you do not want to be viewed in your home and/or by your children. It can be difficult to get this part right, as kids are a smart enough these days to often circumvent such software. We can help, though.
3. Keep electronics in a common, family room. No TV, Internet, or xbox, etc in the bedroom. This will help keep your child safe, and reduce the total amount of time the spend on time wasting activities to begin with.
4. Most importantly, talk to your kids. Ask them what kinds of things they do online and what they are interested in. Try to become involved in a loving, but still parental way, when possible.
Things are different today that when you probably grew up, but just like your kids have access to so many things on the Internet, so do you. You can always seek helpful advice on how to deal with the challenges that raising a child in the digital age brings.
One sure way to hurt your productivity is having to deal with computer crashes. Windows Operating Systems have become more reliable in recent versions, but stability problems often still exist. Fortunately there are things you can do to fine tune your machine to help keep crashes to a minimum.
* Malware
Malware is software designed to access your computer’s resources without your permission. It could refer to entire programs, or just small pieces of computer code inside a larger program. Examples of Malware are computer viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and root kits. It is, of course, critical you have good Malware and Spyware Removal programs, but sometimes a professional service is needed to ensure you have not been exploited. Root kits are extremely dangerous and operate at a level that is often undetectable by many non-professional Anti-Malware programs. It is important to remove malware because not only are you potentially leaving yourself open for identity and information theft, it could severely degrade the performance of your computer. Malware often drains your system of resources, including memory while they execute, thus increasing the liklihood of crashes and poor computer performance.
* Registry Issues
Your “System Registry” is where your operating system, and many programs on your computer, store information about how they should operate. A badly configured registry can severely harm the performance of your computer and lead to computer crashes. The best way to optimize your registry is to run a registry cleaning program, like <a target=’_blank’ href=’http://www.piriform.com/’>CCleaner</a>.
* Not Enough RAM
Often computer crashes are caused by not having enough ram. As time goes on, and more programs are installed, more programs run in the background, benign in nature, without you even knowing about it. These types of programs are usually called “services”. These programs are not harmful and are usually there because they support some other piece of software you willingly installed. Despite this, they drain ram, which increases the chance of a computer crash. The solution is often identifying which programs are not needed, and un-installing them so that only absolutely needed services are running.
* Fragmented Hard Drive
A fragmented hard-rive can also be detrimental to computer performance. Fragmentation refers to the state of your machine when single files are spread out in many places on your hard drive. This means that your hard drive must work very hard in order to read all the information it needs to perform certain operations. And, as you may have guesed, the harder your hard drive must work, the more prone it is to errors, which can hurt performance, and cause a computer crash. To de-fragment your drive, so that files are more consistent in their locations, you can go to the Control Panel, and then System And Security (Windows 7).
If after having checked the above possible issues you still encounter frequent crashes, contact us at The Computer Wizard (972.781.0011) in Plano, Texas. We will give your machine a thorough diagnostic, cleaning, and further advice on how to keep your machine fine tuned in the future.
Possibility #1: Corrupted System Registry Files
Every Windows-based PC has something called a Windows registry. The registry contains several files that are integral to the performance and operation of your computer. Over time, some of those files can become corrupted, be misplaced or get lost altogether. When that happens, the system registry becomes compromised – and frequent crashes are all-too-common symptoms. The best way to rule this possibility in or out is by running a Windows registry cleaning program. Such programs scan your Windows registry for problems then automatically make repairs. If you run a registry cleaner and the crashes persist, they are probably being caused by a different issue.
Possibility #2: Disorganized Files
Windows operating systems handle file organization in a way that isn’t very intuitive. Basically, they break files up and fit them into gaps in the computer’s memory. As time goes by, these disorganized files can prompt frequent crashes. Luckily, a great optimization solution is built right into Windows-based PCs: the disk defragmentation utility. Although its location on a computer varies, you can generally locate it within the System and Security section inside the Control Panel. By running a defrag once every few months, you may be able to keep those pesky computer crashes at bay.
Possibility #3: Malicious Software
Malicious software can take many different forms. Sometimes, it’s a virus that is accidentally unleashed after opening a strange email; other times, its adware that tags along with other information that is automatically downloaded from a website. Whatever type it is, there’s no question that malicious software can wreak havoc on a computer’s performance. Happily, there are many topnotch programs out there that regularly scan your computer for the presence of such problems – and that help guard against them, too. Buy one, install it and use it regularly; your crash issues may come to an end.
Possibility #4: Too Little Available Memory
When you buy a new computer, it feels like there’s no end to the amount of memory that it has. Of course, this isn’t true at all. As never-ending as the available memory on your PC may initially seem, the fact is that it can be depleted with incredible speed. You can find out for sure by checking the information within “My Computer.” If it appears that your available memory is low, you can use a PC cleanup program to remove unnecessary files; such programs remove things like temporary Internet files and other file debris that can suck away much-needed memory.
Possibility #5: Overheating
If you’ve run through all of the preceding possibilities and continue experiencing frequent crashes, a hardware issue could be to blame. An easy one to rule out is overheating. A computer’s CPU, or central processing unit, includes a fan that is designed to keep it running cool. Sometimes, the fan wears down and doesn’t work as efficiently; other times, it’s just not able to handle the work that your computer has to do. In either case, buying a bigger, better fan isn’t very expensive. If it puts an end to your PC crashing problem, it will have been more than worth it.
Don’t Put Up with Frequent Crashes!
As discussed, frequent computer crashes can be triggered by a wide variety of issues. Luckily, many of these issues are relatively easy to remedy. Work your way through the preceding list; chances are, you’ll be able to pinpoint the problem and put an effective cure to work. Nine times out of ten, a computer simply needs a little bit of routine maintenance to get it back on track again. In the future, keep these points in mind. Any time you buy a new computer, keep up with its basic maintenance right from the get-go. By doing that, you could avoid “blue screen of death” and crashing problems altogether – and that’s something that you’re bound to appreciate!
It can be a challenge to identify infected e-mail messages. These days, messages can seem to arrive from legitimate sources (like friends and coworkers), but actually are infected messages automatically sent to you by a so-called slave machine (an infected machine being used to spread malware without the owner’s knowledge).
Here are some potential red-flags to look out for in e-mails:
1) E-mail from people you don’t know (especially obvious SPAM).
2) E-mail messages from people that you do know, but were not expecting (especially if the contain a message attachment of some sort).
3) Odd sounding subject headings to an e-mail, even if it is from someone you know. For example, an e-mail from your father about taking a vacation in the Cayman islands (“Holiday with us in Cayman today!”).
4) Never launch an e-mail with an attachment ending in .exe,.pif, .com, .bat, or .scr extension until you have scanned it with up-to-date virus scanner. These types of files are incredibly dangerous to your computer.Even files ending in .doc and .xls can be dangerous as they can contain executable macro code. Always scan your attachments before opening them.
5) Always avoid SPAM e-mails. A fairly innocuous looking spam e-mail might actually contain a virus of some sort.
6) When in doubt, call the sender of the e-mail to confirm that it is safe and legitimate.
e-mail has grown to be the most used method for sending viruses, worms, trojans and other nasty malware. Take extra precaution to prevent a potential system destroying virus landing on your computer.
Adobe has now released several security patches meant to address some recently discovered, potential vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player 10.1.82.76 as well as earlier versions on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. The problems found with Adobe Reader and Acrobat appear to be much more severe than those with Adobe Flash. The vulnerability (which is written about here: CVE-2010-2884) also affects Adobe Reader 9.3.4. Full security updates for Reader and Acrobat are not, however, expected until October 4th. More vulnerabilities exist in Adobe Reader and Acrobat which can be read about here: CVE-2010-2883. These issues also affect Adobe Reader 9.3.4 and Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4.
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