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Malware is now a common plague of computers these days and has become more common than the conventional virus. In this article you will find explanations of the different types of Malware, how to remove an infection and how to prevent an infection in the first.

What is Malware?

Malware is a malicious piece of software designed to damage your PC or spy on your computer activities without you knowing about it. What follows is a list of common types of malware and their descriptions.

Adware
Adware will hide on your computer and show pop up windows containing adverts for various dubious products. This type of malware is more annoying than harmful.

Virus
A virus is designed to hide within other executable software and to become active when the host software is activated. It will self replicate and place copies of itself into other software or documents. This can cause an increasing infestation of you PC and cause all sorts of damage.

The worm
A worm will also make copies of itself just like a virus but can execute itself without the need for a host application. It will then send multiple copies of itself to other computers via the internet.

Ransom Ware
Ransom ware is used to extort money from the computer owner by locking up important files on your computer. A message will be displayed demanding the appropriate ransom before giving access to the files.

Trojan Horses
Trojan horses conceal their true identity by masquerading as or hiding inside legitimate software. They usually get on to your computer in some form of free software downloaded from the internet.

Spyware
Spyware is designed to monitor and record all of your keyboard actions, internet activity and personal details such as credit card details and passwords sending them via the internet to the spyware maker using email.

Symptoms of an infected computer:

If your computer has displayed a considerable reduction in speed it could be infected with malware, it sometimes may even appear to pause or hang. Another is that windows will behave erratically and unstable. Malware will sometimes display popup windows at random. If you have a good antivirus program it should let you know of the presence of Malware and offer to remove it for you.

How Does my Computer Get Infected?

Emails
If you receive any email from unknown or unexpected senders make sure that you scan it before opening it with your anti virus software and if you have any doubts do not open it.

Websites
Browsing some websites that are suspect can lead to infection because the Malware can be hidden as code in the web page itself.

Peer to Peer File Sharing Software
File sharing software enables the user to share illegal music, software and video and is a common way to get infected. A lot of the files available on peer to peer networks have Malware hidden within them or are not the files you were expecting at all.

Popup messages
Malware can often infect your computer through popups or IP popups. IP popups can be sent strait to your computers IP address bypassing popup blockers. These popups are usually disguised as Windows error messages asking you to ‘click here’ to remedy the error. Clicking the button will execute the Malware.

Instant Messaging Software
This may be a surprise to many of you as instant messaging software is becoming very popular. Infection usually happens when sharing files with people so be careful who you share files with.

Networks
All computers on a network are at risk of infection if one of those computers have Malware on it. For that reason all network computers must be protected by antivirus software and a firewall.

How to prevent Malware infection:

Use Internet Securities Software
I advise all computer users to invest in good quality internet securities software from companies such as Semantec and McAfee. It is not advisable to use free anti virus software as these don’t tend to be as effective and can also be Malware disguised as anti virus software. Whichever one you use just make sure that you keep it regularly updated and remember to renew your yearly subscription. Remember, out of date anti virus software is completely useless.

Use A Firewall
Windows XP and Vista both have a firewall built in and you should have them switched on. If you have a good internet securities program this will have a firewall included which should be used in favour of the Microsoft version.

Use Windows Update
You should use Windows Update on a regular basis to ensure that you have all the latest critical updates. Security holes in windows are often found and Microsoft will have patches for these available..

How To Remove Malware From Your Computer:

With any good internet securities application removing malware is a simple task. If you set them up to do so they will remove malware automatically and then inform you once the offender has been dealt with.

A Final Word Of Caution:

You will be at a much higher risk of infection if you visit illegal or immoral websites, these sites tend to be set up and frequented by people who have no scruples and will think nothing of infecting your computer along with many others.

Notebook computers - also known as laptop computers - have become an important part of our lives. They are more affordable than ever and as popular as cell phones. A laptop computer has a versatility that the home PC does not provide. With its smaller size it is portable and easier to carry along. This makes it convenient to use in many situations. You can take it to work and back home as well as take it on more extensive travel.

Laptop computers are not just for older working people anymore. Because of its ease of use, more young people are using them for school and college. They can access the Internet almost anywhere and provide updates for work, research, and even games.

Taking Care of Your Laptop or Notebook Computer

It is important to take care of your laptop computer and protect it from accidents. They are designed for heavy use but common sense will tell you that you need to be prudent in your treatment.

One of the first recommendations is to buy a case designed for a notebook computer. These are made with padding to protect your laptop computer from wear and tear and protection in case you drop it. It is not good to carry your notebook computer unprotected or in a purse or backpack. You can easily find a case by shopping online where you will find 1000s of products to choose from.

Another important tip for laptop computer care is to keep food and drinks away from it. Even a small amount of liquid is enough to ruin the delicate components in the laptop computer. It means almost certain replacement, and most warranties will not cover it. It is not worth the risk to lose all your data.

Protect Your Notebook Computer

When using your laptop computer you should always use a surge protector. An electrical surge may not hurt it one time, but continued surges could destroy it. If you are using a cable or dial-up modem during a storm, be sure to unplug it. Lightening can travel through phone lines and ruin the laptop computer.

You should not leave your notebook computer in a cold environment. This can cause condensation when you return it to a warm area and could cause the circuitry to short it out. If it has been in the cold, let it warm up before turning it on.

When traveling with your laptop computer, be sure to charge all your batteries before you leave. You might not know when you will be able to charge them again. On a long trip, take extra batteries to avoid this problem. By shopping online, you can find the supplies you need as well as other products such as iPods, jewelry, games, toys, sporting goods, pet supplies and cell phones - even free gifts.

Do not leave your notebook computer unattended and do not check it as baggage when flying. Keep it in your hands at all times to avoid the possibility of theft. Don’t try to disassemble or repair your laptop computer; this is a job for professionals. You may inadvertently cause more damage by your lack of knowledge.

Shopping Online

When you are ready to buy a laptop computer, cell phone, iPod, or other electronics, shopping online will provide everything you need.

click here homeowner loans compare products un secured loans

I work at a interactive marketing agency in the Boston area. For those of you who don’t know, working at an agency means long hours and late nights. Being a bit of a techie guy, I have a pretty advanced setup at home, at least to the point that I’m still running Windows and not Linux, but that’s another story. So I spend a lot of nights working from home on projects for my Fortune 1000 clients, and that means tight deadlines and a lot of money on the table. It also means that I depend on my computer, a lot, so it needs to be running in tip-top shape.

I didn’t always take such good care of my computer, however. One particular evening, I was working on a project and the unthinkable happened. It was late, very late, and had spent the better part of an evening at my computer. I was getting ready to call it a night and decided to take one last look at my presentation. When I went to open it, however, I received an error window and my computer shut off. Upon restarting, I got another error and the computer turned off again, before it even finished booting windows! Now I had a problem on my hands. Several hours of work on a presentation were being held hostage on my computer, and this was due in the morning. It took a couple hours of tinkering before I could copy the file to another location and retrieve it there, but thankfully I got it.

The next day, when I had some time to address the cause of the error instead of just frantically trying to rescue data, I managed to get windows to finishing loading. After that, however, I was lost. I had no idea what was causing the error or how to fix it. I really didn’t want to reinstall windows or buy a new computer, so I started doing some research online. It was then that I learned about registry cleaners. Registry cleaners scan your Windows registry for invalid entries that inevitably happen over time. These invalid entries cause many of the problems that most people have with their computers. Whether it’s running slow, giving you error messages or shutting down suddenly, all this can usually be fixed by repairing your Windows registry.

I’ve now invested in a registry cleaner, called Registry Smart, which I use on a regular basis to keep my computer running smoothly. I no longer have any computer trouble, which gives me the peace of mind to focus on what’s really important, my clients!

It’s fairly safe to say these days that most of us, (around 80%) have bought a well-known antivirus package. Personally, I favour Norton but McAfee, AVG and a few others dominate the antivirus and spyware market. There is of course a good reason for this.

Popularity is the main reason. When you buy a computer the chances are you would buy it from a high street computer shop, a well-known internet name such as Dell, or on the strength of a recommendation. You would be very cautious about handing over your hard-earned cash to a company you have never heard of, and rightly so. The same applies to an antivirus software download. Most of us would much rather spend our money on one of the big names mentioned above, (even if they are more expensive) because we know that we will be getting a high level of protection from a brand we can trust. The only time we are likely to deviate from this is if we are offered a free antivirus program / trial or if someone we trust recommends different antivirus software downloads. What most people don’t realise, (also around 80%) is that we shouldn’t rely solely on these programs. Why?

Once we buy and install this antivirus software we let it run and forget about it. We assume we are safe and fully protected because we bought the best there is. To a point this is true. I would always recommend buying your main antivirus package from a recognised brand. Personally I use Norton Internet Security. It not only protects against viruses but it comes with automatic updates, checks my emails for viruses and spyware, and even comes with Norton GO-Back which is a more advanced version of Microsoft’s, “System Restore”. This is all wonderful stuff but there is one problem. Something that affects every one of these big brands of software.

If you are familiar with computers you may have heard that using an alternative operating system or internet browser such as firefox is safer. The reason for this is that Creators of Viruses, Trojans, Spyware, Worms and all the other types of malicious bugs are very clever. They know that almost everyone uses Internet Explorer. They also know that 80% of people use one of 5-6 big software brands.

When the viruses is created it is usually intended to reach as many computers as possible. Therefore it is only logical that the first targets to overcome are the big named brands. If the virus get get past this antivirus software undetected then it stands a very good chance of infecting thousands of machines. Now this is where the problem lies. Norton, McAfee and other big names are always the first target. There is nothing they can do about this other than to be as prepared as possible.

This is where the consumer needs to get wise. As stated above I would always recommend owning one of the recognised antivirus software packages as your first line of defence. But if this was all there was to it, then nobody would ever get a Virus on their machine. We know for a fact that thousands, (maybe more) still get infected everyday. so how do we prevent this?

The answer is very simple and inexpensive. There are hundreds of lesser known antivirus downloads available on the market. These are not frequently targeted by the creators of viruses because there is less opportunity for their virus to spread. Many of these programs will run quite happily alongside your main software, or you can just use them to run a scan periodically.

So, to ensure you are as fully protected as possible here is what you should do. First, buy or keep your current recognised ‘big brand’ software. This is a vital step that should not be missed (the smaller cheaper antivirus downloads are unlikely to provide adequate cover on their own). Secondly, buy a lesser known spyware scanner and remover. Thirdly, Also buy a lesser known adware stopper. It is important to note that there is no need to spend vast sums of money here. You can very easily purchase both of these products for far less than half of the cost of Norton, or McAfee.

This may sound like a time-consuming effort, but once it is installed you can simply set it to run once a week and forget about it just like your current software. By buying separate programs like this you maximise your chances of spotting anything untoward on your PC. For the sake of a few $$ you could potentially save the security of your bank account or credit card details. Don’t delay in taking action!

1. Power button default action

The default action for the Power button on the start menu in Windows Vista is Sleep, which isn’t necessarily useful for everybody. You can configure this setting easily by using the advanced power settings panel, which is a little tricky to get to normally, but we’ll take the shortcut. Open a command prompt (type cmd into the start menu search bar), and then type in the following: powercfg.cpl. You could also take the long route (Control Panel Power Options Change Plan Settings Change Advanced Power Settings) Once you get to this dialog, browse down as shown to “Power buttons and lid”

From here, you can change the options:

* Power button action - Changes the hardware power button action
* Start menu power button - Changes the power button on the Start Menu

You can change the power button to either Sleep, Hibernate or Shut Down, or even nothing for the hardware power button.

2. Hide Desktop Icon Text on Windows Vista

Some icons are just obvious enough that nobody should need text below them to tell them what the icon is for. A good example of this is the icon for Internet Explorer. We’re all really used to it by now, and the text just makes it ugly. Just right-click on the shortcut, and choose Rename. Now hold down the Alt key and type in 255 on the keypad to the right of the keyboard. You can’t use the number keys right above the keyboard, they won’t work. If you have a laptop, you can turn on numlock and then use the little number keys next to the regular letters. (You know you always wondered what they were for)

For the first shortcut on the desktop, a simple Alt+255 will do. For the next shortcut, you’ll have to enter the combination twice (Alt+255, Alt+255). For the third, 3 times… you get the idea. The way this works is that the Alt+255 character is blank, so the shortcut filename is actually just named with a character that is completely blank. Since you can’t have two shortcuts or files named the exact same thing, the second shortcut will have to be named with two blank characters.

Now we have a sweet looking icon on the desktop, with no bothersome text beneath it. If you use this tip to rename a folder, you will not be able to rename the folder back using the right-click rename. I’m not sure why this is. What you’ll have to do is open a command prompt and change directory into the containing folder (For instance, the desktop folder), and run this command: ren “Alt+255” “NewFolderName” You will need to actually type the Alt+255 characters where illustrated in the command. It will appear as a space. Note that the Recycle Bin icon won’t work this way.

3. Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista

The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I’m not sure why they didn’t make the boot screen better.

1) Press Win+R, type msconfig and press Enter.

2) If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on Continue.

3) In the “System Configuration” window, click on the Boot tab.

4) Select your Windows Vista installation and under “Boot options”, check “No GUI boot”. Press OK.

5) In the dialog that appears, check “Don’t show this message again”, and then click on Restart.

6) Your computer will now reboot, and you will see the Aurora boot screen with text that says “Starting Windows Vista”.

Note: You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go away.

4. Fix for COM Surrogate Has Stopped Working Error in Vista

If you’ve been getting the error COM Surrogate has stopped working whenever you browse folders containing Divx avi files, it looks like the latest Divx update to codec version 6.5 fixes the issue, but it also seems to remove the thumbnails. If you want to upgrade, just use the divx update checker to grab the new version. Looks like it’s finally fixed, at least the error message is now gone, although I really wish they would have just gotten the thumbnails working instead.

* If you are using Nero, you will need to update to version 7.7.5.1 to fix the problem. I think this is the source of the error for most people.
* If you’ve upgraded Nero and Divx and still have the problem, you can try renaming the file C:Program FilesCommon FilesAheadDSFilterNeVideo.ax to NeVideo.ax.bak This will break Nero Showtime, however.

5. Stop an Application from Running at Startup in Windows Vista

Back in the old days, there were a lot of places an application could hook itself to run at startup. You had to check the registry in more than one place, as well as your start menu. With Windows Vista, there’s a built-in panel that handles all that for you. To quickly get to this panel, you can open Control Panel, and then type “startup” into the search box. The link for “Stop a program from running at startup” shows up immediately. You could have also opened Windows Defender and fooled around with the menus until you find the right spot, but this seems quicker to me. Now you can see the Windows Defender screen that lets you manage the startup programs. You can choose to Remove or just Disable any startup item using this panel, as well as lots of other useful information so that you can see what each item is.

6. Emptying Windows Vista Temp Files Directory

Windows Vista Disk Cleanup wizard is really not all that bad, but I did find a small problem with it… It doesn’t fully empty your temp folder. It only allows you to delete temporary files that haven’t been modified in a week. If you’ve recently done a lot of editing or something that generates large temporary files, you may want to manually clean up. Just type in %TEMP% into the start menu search box, and hit enter. You’ll immediate be taken to the temporary files folder, where you can delete whatever you feel like.

7. Disable User Account Control(UAC) For Administrators Only

If you can’t stand the User Account Control prompts, but you’d still like to retain a little bit of security, you can disable it for Administrator accounts only. What we’ll be doing is actually changing Windows Vista to automatically elevate the privilege level for administrators without prompting. The nice thing about doing it this way is that regular users as well as Internet Explorer still run as regular users, and would still use the normal security mechanisms. To configure this setting on Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, you can use the Local Security Policy configuration.

* Just type in secpol.msc into the Start menu search box and hit enter.
* Now browse down to Local Policies Security Options
* Find the following in the list: “User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode” and double-click on it.
* Change the setting to “Elevate without prompting”. You should be all done.

This is an easier method that you can use to do the same thing from the GUI interface.

* Open up Control Panel, and type in user account into the search box.
* You’ll see the link for “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off”. Click it.
* Uncheck the box, and reboot your computer. You should be done with obnoxious prompts!

8. Using Windows Vista System Restore

Windows Vista has a feature called System Restore that automatically backs up registry and system files whenever you install new software or drivers. This feature is useful when you install evil software that makes your computer run really slow. But don’t worry, System Restore won’t remove Windows Vista.

Using System Restore in Windows Vista

There are two places that you can use the system restore feature from. From within Windows, you can just type restore into the Start menu search box, and you’ll immediately see System Restore at the top of the start menu, or you can type rstrui into the search box and hit enter. Your choice. You will immediate see a screen where you can choose to roll back the system to the last restore point. You can select “Recommended restore”, and just click next, or you can choose a different restore point. If you do choose a different restore point, you will see a list of restore points that you can choose from. Click one of them, and you will have to confirm and then restart your computer to roll the system back. If your system won’t boot If you can’t even get into windows, you can boot off the installation dvd, and choose the “Repair your computer” option on the lower left hand side. Click next on the next screen. Now choose System Restore from the System Recovery dialog. It will take a few seconds to come up, and you will see the same screen that you would see in Windows. Click next, and on the next screen select the drive that your copy of Windows Vista is installed on. Click Finish, and Vista will roll back to the previous restore point. Really pretty simple stuff. I absolutely recommend keeping the system restore feature on in Vista !

9. Verify the Integrity of Windows Vista System Files Windows Vista includes a utility that will scan your system for corrupt, changed or missing system files. Running this from the command prompt is much easier than booting off the dvd into repair mode. To run this utility, you will need to open a command prompt in administrator mode. You can do that by right clicking the Command Prompt in the list and choose “Run as Administrator” Once you have an administrator command prompt open, you can run the utility by using the following syntax: SFC [/SCANNOW] [/VERIFYONLY] [/SCANFILE=] [/VERIFYFILE=] [/OFFWINDIR= /OFFBOOTDIR=] The most useful command is just to scan immediately, which will scan and attempt to repair any files that are changed or corrupted. You can run that command with this command: sfc /scannow

10. Disable Hibernation & delete the Hibernation file

Windows places a file on your hard drive that it uses when your computer goes into hibernation mode. If you do not use hibernation mode, or your computer does not properly support it, you may want to disable hibernation and clear the file off your hard drive to free up some space (the file will use as much space as you have in physical memory, so if you have 1GB of RAM, it’s going to use 1GB of your hard drive space).

Disable Hibernation:
1. Click Start, All Programs, and then right click on “Command Prompt”.
2. From the context menu click on “Run as administrator”.
3. If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on Continue.
4. In the command prompt window, type “powercfg –h off” (without the quotes).
5. Close the Command Prompt window.

Delete the Hibernation File:
1. Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click “Disk Cleanup”.
2. If prompted to choose a drive, select the drive in which Windows Vista is installed on to and press OK.
3. Disk Cleanup will scan the hard drive and present you with a list of options.
4. Check “Hibernation File Cleaner”, and then click OK.
5. When asked “Are you sure you want to permanently delete these files?” click on the Delete Files button .

This and more articles can be found at: http://blog.symbiancentral.com

Many businesses considering a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to cover their internet and database applications share the same set-up concerns. You want to know the most efficient and cost effective approach to get “from here to there”. You’ll also want to evaluate whether to go with a site-to-site connection or user connection approach. Plus….you’ll want some idea of the best options for appropriate hardware.

To help this learning opportunity along let’s set-up a realistic practical example….and then address each of the concerns around this scenario.

Here goes:

You have 10 satellite offices spread some distance apart …. each with multiple users …. that you want to connect to a central headquarters location.

For this scenario here’s my suggestions to address the most common set-up concerns…..

First…..a Site-to-site connection is best; by having two VPN endpoint routers talk to each other, you can have all the computers behind each router connect as opposed to paying (say) $35 or more for each computer to have a client loaded. Depending upon what router you buy, some come with pre-installed PPTP and IPSEC VPN clients already installed so you’re all set.

Next, the type of network connection you are going to be using is a critical element. Such as Cable, xDSL, T1, or DS3. Depending on the size of your usage base (number of users and load each places on your network) you should consider a T1 line as your backbone. You can always scale up as the need arises (to a bonded T1 or DS3) or scale down if warranted (fractional T1). This level of dedicated bandwidth circuit also affords more reliability, stability, and scalability ….. not to mention a QoS (Quality of Service) and SLA (Service Level Agreement) form providers who over these levels of circuits. That makes business sense.

Remember to gauge your budget for hardware, and also determine if there is an expectation for having any folks traveling who’ll need remote access. The former I’ll address next. The later bears on your circuit size decision discussed above.

For the guts of the network your common choices run the gamut of Linksys, SMC and Netgear; Zywall is another option; and so is OpenVPn, which is script based. The deciding factor will always be “cost” and “ease of configuration.” Then again, if you’re one who doesn’t mind a little work (and you shouldn’t if you’re in the network game) a little overtime is necessary and worth it with some solutions.

Alright, for hardware here’s some ideas……

From the Linksys SOHO/SMB turnkey solution department, I submit the following hardware devices. Many IT managers use Newegg.com for a source because they have good prices (in my opinion).

1) WRV54G - “Severely” underrated. Supports 50 IPSEC VPN tunnels and 5 onboard Quickvpn IPSEC VPN clients; you can upgrade clients from 5 to 50 (yes, it’s real VPN). Does not support NAT-T/GRE, so you cannot configure a microsoft VPN server connection with this unit.

2) WRT54GL routers using DD-WRT 24B VPN edition Firmware. It supports both client and server Open VPN. This is very secure and stable. Far less expensive, keeping with the hardware VPN direction, than anything I have found.

3) RV016/042/082 - All support a minimum of 5 IPSEC VPN tunnels (or higher), minimum of 5 quickvpn clients (with upgrade option same as WRV54G). Units support NAT-T/GRE, has onboard PPTP server with 5 clients, and allows you to configure a microsoft VPN server behind it for addtional PPTP/L2TP clients (128 in total).

4) WRVS4400N - Supports 5 IPSEC VPN tunnels, 5 Quickvpn clients (no upgrade option as of yet), and supports NAT=T/GRE. Additionally, you have port based VLAN available, IDS/IPS services, to include email alert, user define-able access control lists, define-able services, supports IPV4/IPV6 for LAN connections, WMM for improved QoS and video/audio. Yes, I’m showing favoritism on this one. I’ve friends currently testing this and it’s looking like the Linksys products of old.

Just visit the Linksys.com website and peruse the Router/VPN Solutions area for business series routers.

Lastly, the following software solutions are free:

1) Monowall - requires an old PC with two NICs (for starters); download image to your computer, burn to a disk, go forth and conquer.

2) Smoothwall - same as Monowall

3) SSL Explorer - SSL solution for vpn

4) OpenVPN - script based vpn

Overall: I prefer hardware solutions so I’m inclined to go with a router that has either an onboard PPTP server or the capability to support NAT-T/GRE. Using hardware reduces the load on having a workstation/server host your VPN, but that doesn’t make software solutions any less effective.

Well there you have it. Some practical tips on VPN set-up to help you make a practical business sense decision on the common concerns you’ll face. The only thing left is to roll up your sleeves and “just do it”.