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

Windows XP: End of an Era

Well, my friends, now rather than later this has to be said. The End of Life (EOL) for Windows XP (all versions) is just around the corner on April 8, 2014.

First of all, what is End of Life? This is a term used when companies assert that a product is at the end of its useful life and will no longer be marketing it, selling it or offering any support on the product. This is exactly what Microsoft is doing with their most successful operating system to date, Windows XP. Whether we agree or not, its their decision.

So what does this exactly mean to you? What this means is that Microsoft will no longer making available any of the critical and security updates and patches that you may be used to seeing about every two to three days. These updates provide patches to the software when it becomes hacked and made vulnerable to malicious intent. This will no longer happen. Meanwhile, after the EOL happens, any vulnerability found will be exploited in high risk. That means that your computer, data, etc is open for anyone to attack, take over and confiscate.

Sounds gloomy, right? Well ten or fifteen years ago, I might have had a different aspect on this and thought it would pretty safe to continue using for a few years...just so you can get comfortable with spending money for an upgrade. However, to paraphrase a great author's work, that was then and this is now. With cyber crime at unimaginable rates, I just cannot imagine there being a good reason to hang onto it...as good as it is.

So my suggestion is that you start working your way to the next big thing. Now, many people who run out and buy from the shelf at a local retailer will definitely wind up with Windows 8. You do have a choice, you can get Windows 7 if you order from the manufacturer and tell them what you want. Microsoft has it out as orders that all retailers have to push Windows 8. Not everyone is falling for it; Windows 8 still has under a 4% market share...take that Microsoft. You could always opt for a Mac and why not; Mac have a near 0% reputation of coming under attack. However, for most people the cost in prohibitive.

We here at Delaware Valley Tech Rescue are getting many calls from clients who are switching over now before the deadline so we are doing a good number of setups and we want to make that you are thinking about this now rather than later to avoid the rush.

So like it or not, Windows XP closes the book on itself but keep in mind that there are choices. You just have to take a good look at all the prospects.