Protection Two-Step

Hi Everyone. I am asked all the time about anti-virus, both personally and professionally. The answer always starts the same; it makes no difference how much you buy or how much you have. Nothing is 100%. With that being said, I want to talk to you about your home protection.

My suggestion is a two-part scenario that focuses on prevention more so than remediation. Think about that. Certainly, it would be more beneficial to your time and energy if you put a plan in motion that works on being proactive, so you do not spend much time reacting to every threat, am I right? Let’s have a look at this scenario.

Part One – There are dozens of anti-virus products out there and they are essentially as effective as the flu shot; not very. So how do you choose which one to get? Should you pay for protection or get the free protection? Free protection is great if you are the type of person who will scrutinize everything that happens to your system because of the horrors of the Internet. However, if you ask what Joel does, I pay for the premium version of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Here is why. MalwareBytes has a much different stand on viruses; instead of remediation after infection, they focus on being proactive and making sure the infection cannot harm your system and they do so by stopping the two-way communication between the virus and the virus command center.

Part Two – Take an extra step to protect your home network and do it for free! Stop on over to OpenDNS.com and sign up for an account and start protecting. Here at Reybold, we use Cisco Umbrella which is the Enterprise version of OpenDNS. With this free personal service, you will either change some settings in your computers or in your home router with their incredibly easy-to-follow instructions and once done, you are under the umbrella of protection by the service. Not only does OpenDNS provide a much faster browsing service for your Internet, it also has the build-in protection that Cisco offers by blocking bad elements from passing through the DNS to your router and/or systems.

So, this is my personal plan that somewhat follows the path we use here at work. We deploy a strong Anti-Virus package on the computers and then we add the outer layer of protection from Cisco to keep bad guys out to begin with. Just remember, this is like anything else and not 100% effective. All of these things cannot prevent the number one problem when it comes to infections; the human element. You still have to be vigilant with where you are browsing and what happens in your email.

http://www.malwarebytes.com/premium
http://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security

TECH SUPPORT SCAMS ON THE RISE

My friends, I know that you might hear this from me a lot, but the issue with these fake #tech #support #scams, which come by way of Pop-up windows, pop-up windows with AUDIO and telephone calls is becoming ever so more serious. I have been inundated with clients dealing with these issues daily which tells me that they are on a steady rise. These scams are not going to go away because it is a multi-billion dollar (annually) industry.

Here are some questions I am getting and I pass this on to you. Feel free to pass this on to friends and family and SHARE my page so folks can find me if they find themselves in peril with their computers.

What did I do wrong to get this pop-up? Likely, nothing. These pop-ups are generated by scripts that are placed into websites unknowingly by the website owner so it is passed to you when you land on an otherwise legitimate website. One of the newer ways this is happening is that the malicious code is tied to advertising on webpages, which again, will auto-launch when you land on the page.

I have a pop-up, what do I do? The first thing to do is realize that it is FAKE. No one from #Microsoft or any other company knows if you have viruses or such. But you have to get this off your screen and fast, right? So you might notice that you cannot just close the browser so you have to open your Task Manager. To do this, Right-Click on the taskbar that lays across the bottom of your screen. Select the Task Manager. When that loads, you can click on the web browser that is open (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer...) and click End Process. That should close the browser and all associated windows/pop-ups along with it. If that fails, you can always hold your power button in until the computer shuts down (NOTE – I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE).

Now am I infected? You might be. There is no guarantee that the pop-up did not drop a drive-by downloader off when the pop-up activated. To be sure you should check your system fully or have a qualified technician look it over for you. If in doubt, have it checked out.

Until we cut off the money supply these types of scams will not only continue but they will continue to outsmart the human element to get what they want. Using some common sense decisions will prevent the cyber criminals from winning.

Still Using Windows XP? Then Read On!

We've all heard the warnings and the techie nay-sayers scream from the data center rooftops, "Get rid of XP! Abandon XP!" From the standpoint of security, sure it is a good..no..great idea to move on to a more modern and/or more secure operating system. But there are a good handful of reasons why people cling to Windows XP and if you are one of the more than 25% of the operating system share that chose to do so then here are some tips for you.

Use Anti-Virus Protection: It goes without saying that everyone should use a good anti-virus software. There are still a good number of free suites that are still supporting Windows XP, even if Microsoft is not. Take a look at AVG, Avast!, Comodo and Panda to name a few who have not announced end of Windows XP support dates as of yet.

Use Malware Protection: A very good companion to any anti-virus protection is the use of a good malware scanner. Again, there are many free options. The thing about free versions is that it is completely manually invoked. If you can part with the few dollars for say MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, then the program can be setup to check for updates and scan the system on a schedule.

TIP: While you are downloading MalwareBytes Anti-Malware, pick up the free MalwareBytes Anti-Exploit as well. Just one more layer of protection to help when you are browsing online.

Toss Internet Explorer: Besides the fact that Internet Explorer is stuck in version 8 under Windows XP, it is slow, bogged down and everyone is trying to exploit its many vulnerabilities. Using alternatives like Chrome, Firefox or others is the best way to go because they are still supported, safe and they self update without so much as a normal restart of the browser which we do anyway when we are done browsing, right?

Do Not Use Outlook Express: Like Internet Explorer, Outlook Express has been abandoned by Microsoft and therefore does not receive any love, or updates for that matter. So if you are not ready to abandon the application-style email client for the cloud-based solutions, then check out Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail, IncrediMail, etc. Or, if you really like the Outlook experience, fork out $5 per month and get the Office 365 subscription.

Keep Checking Updates: I know, it sounds crazy, right? Didn't Microsoft stop supporting Windows XP? Yes, they did but there may be other elements of Microsoft that have available updates. One such item is the Malicious Software Tool. Also, if there is a major update to any hardware that is still supported then you can get that downloaded too.

So let's review. There are still plenty of users who have not yet given up the Windows XP platform. If you are still using it, all you have to do is be very careful and take some sensible precautions. Be sure that you are also self-monitoring where you go and that you are not being socially-engineered. You can still enjoy one of the greatest operating systems abandoned by Microsoft...at least for a couple more years.