Archive for the ‘Security Help’ Category

Dean F. Asks:
The other day I had a box pop-up on my screen that said my computer was infected (it didn’t say with what) and that I needed to do an immediate scan with their online scanner and then purchase the program to get rid of it. I thought it was from Microsoft, but I didn’t click on it because I have my own anti-virus and anti-spyware protection

Securing and encrypting your files is often either expensive or uncertain. If you own Windows 7 Enterprise or Windows 7 Ultimate, however, then you already have a free way to secure your drive, included in your operating system. These versions of Windows 7 include BitLocker, Microsoft’s drive encryption software – and if you own a business, work in an office, or just want file security, encrypting your files… Continue reading

Q:
Spyware – adware – What can I do to prevent this junk from getting on my computer?

A:
And junk it is.

I have had my more than my share of spyware, malware, this-ware, that-ware, so I have really bumped my computer up security-wise.

Below are tips to prevent you from contacting anything you don’t want to. If you… Continue reading

Here’s an article dedicated to Rootkits and how you can get rid of them! Continue reading

Frank from Ohio asks:

I did a spyware scan the other day and it turns out that I had some “Trojans” and “tracking cookies” on my computer (my program got rid of them). I have no idea what a Trojan is; as a matter of fact, I don’t understand what a lot of things mean in regards of

Q:
In the past, I have contacted several viruses on my computer. I got one the other day and had to completely wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows. Since then, my printer doesn’t work. This may be stupid, but did the virus destroy my printer? Can viruses damage your hardware?

A:
That is not a stupid question! It totally makes sense. There… Continue reading

You’ve been working like a little trooper all morning and rightly decide you’ve earned yourself a coffee break. Having left a whole bunch of documents open on your computer, you’re horrified to find an error-filled blue screen waiting for you on your return. Anything not saved before you turned your back has disappeared into the ether.

Sound familiar?

There are a million… Continue reading

Everybody has secrets. In the computer world, secrets range from a simple password to an entire hard drive full of confidential information.

Of course, there are many ways to protect your secrets in cyberspace. You can use password managers, secure connections, hidden partitions and many other methods to protect them from prying eyes.

The problem with most of these methods is that they use… Continue reading

Some Windows XP users have reported experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and/or endless reboots after installing a patch Microsoft released last Tuesday which aimed to fix a vulnerability in MS-DOS.

Now, this may not be affecting everyone, but we still thought it would be good to apprise you all of the situation. Don’t let this stop you from applying… Continue reading

It seems like everything on the internet these days is “social”. Social media web sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter allow you to share interests, opinions, pictures and many other personal things with your friends on the Internet. While sharing these things with friends is what these sites are made for, it’s not just friends that can view your personal information.

Social media harvesting is a new… Continue reading

When you think about your internet security, what comes to mind? Do you think about Anti-Virus and firewalls? Cookies and IP addresses? What browser you are using? What Operating System do you have? All of these things can be legitimate concerns in the security world, and picking the right products can make or break your system’s safety. Combining the correct browser with the right plugins and an anonymous IP address… Continue reading

K9 Web Protection is free software that filters fraudulent, illicit, adult, and pornographic content. It is a great alternative to software that charges you for such service. This step by step tutorial will show you how to install K9 Web Protection on your computer.

Step 1- Download K9 Web Protection

The first thing you have to do is to download K9 Web Protection… Continue reading

While wandering through the Intel display at CES this year, I came across some pretty exciting anti-theft technology that’s developing. I’m sure that many of you have heard of Lo-Jack. They are best known for providing tracking technology for recovering stolen cars. Well, it seems that Intel and Lo-Jack have been working together to provide a similar technology for laptops. Intel provides the hardware to make it work, and… Continue reading

Robert Morris, a doctoral student at Cornell University, wrote one of the first computer viruses that spread itself via a network. When released, the virus would target VAX and Sun machines. Unlike some of today’s viruses, it was not designed to cause harm to the computer: when a computer was infected, the virus would duplicate itself every 90 seconds. This caused the computers to eventually slow down or crash as… Continue reading

Chad from IN asks:

What’s the difference between spyware, viruses, malware, adware and grayware?

Good question, Chad! While spyware, viruses, malware, adware and grayware are all bad, there are fundamental differences between the five which might help you combat them.

Firstly, let’s take a look at malware. Malware is

This is a follow-up to my first article on Net Guardian, which can be found here.

How can you be sure that Net Guardian will not become obsolete?

Since there are many thousands of new Web sites added to the World Wide Web everyday, Net Guardian is able to update accordingly. Net Guardian uses high-speed computers called “Mudcrawlers”, R3000 Servers, that are… Continue reading

As I’m sure you already know, if you have any accounts with Google, (gmail, youtube, Google checkout, google docs, google calendar, igoogle, picasa web albums, google talk, etc.) Google keeps usage and data statistics on you. This fact has caused some people to say that Google knows to much about a user. Many people think that Google is infringing on their users’ privacy rights.

Well, awhile back… Continue reading

If you’ve fallen victim to some nasty viruses or horrible spyware, chances are you won’t be able to boot up your antivirus software. What many computer users don’t know is that you can also get access to virus removal scans online. So, when your antivirus won’t work and you can’t get rid of the virus any other way, here’s some Web sites you can visit to put everything back the… Continue reading

So I’m sure that many of you have heard of Microsoft’s new Security Essentials program. According to Microsoft, MS Security Essentials is virus, spyware and malware protection for free.

When I first saw this I was blown away. I thought that there is no way Microsoft is going to release a program, for free, that others have paid big bucks for in the… Continue reading

Recently, I wrote an article on how to recognize and avoid Rogue software.

What the article did not cover, however, is how to remove a program should you accidentally get infected. Because there is a new and particularly nasty program infecting computers out there, this article explains how to remove Malware in general, and specifically, how to remove “Total Security 2009”.… Continue reading

Just last week, Websense Security Labs released it’s State Of Internet Security report. This report is released twice a year and it covers all changes in website and internet security in the past 6 months. While we can generally expect that internet vulnerabilities, spam and other attacks will rise, this report was especially grim.

According to the report, the number of malicious sites on the web has… Continue reading

As I’m sure some of you know by now, I am a pretty big stickler for security. As the “security guy” here at Worldstart, I am in charge of making sure that your stuff remains safe. To accomplish this, there are quite a few precautions that we take on our end. These measures that we take everyday ensure that information like your credit card number and your passwords are not… Continue reading

What is that over there on the horizon? Do you see it? It looks like a HUGE SECURITY ISSUE!!!

That’s right. Just a couple weeks ago, the Black Hat Security Conference took place. For those of you who have never heard of this conference, I’ll explain how this one is a bit ‘different’ than your average security meeting. You see, in the Black Hat conference… Continue reading