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Showing posts with label security. Show all posts

How To Know If Your Computer Was Infected By A Virus

When your computer performs slower than usual, you need to be aware of any potential of virus attacks. The annoying sign when the virus infects your PC is the occurrence of a crash and restart by itself more often. Each virus has special form and mode. These viruses are very difficult to be eliminated from each application.

Some corrupted program will affect your machine by forbidding you to install a new antivirus. While, some other make applications and programs on your system disappear without any purpose to delete it.

Computer spyware are programs have the ability to redirect browsers or monitor you keypad activity, therefore gaining a complete access to your virtual identity. Although not malicious in nature, computer spyware could give you a hard time when browsing the Internet.

If you have the choice you should use the auto update option that is provided by most operating systems such as Windows. Free downloadable software from reputable companies such as Avast or AVG Technologues is a good option but they wont offer you as many protection as the bought and licensed antivirus softwares.

Internet Security Tests With Symantec Security Check

If you want to test your computer's vulnerability against internet virus threats, use Symantec Security Check. This website offers you their free security scanning via the internet. All you have to do is to let the website scans your computer and wait for the result. Internet security tests can be easy with this site.

Symantec Security Check has two different method of scanning. The first one is Security Scan and the second is Virus Detection scan. I perform Security Check while writing this post.

Security Scan will scan your computer for any hidden loopholes. The website detects your IP address automatically.

To start scannig, first of all the website prompts you to agree on a one-to-one agreement between you and the Symantec Security, the company who provides the free scan. Just click 'I agree' and click 'Start' button colored in red.

Scanning process will take about 2-4 minutes depending on your internet connection speed. For the best result, please do not browse any other website while scanning is in progress, also please do not close your web browser while scanning process is still unfinished.

Symantec Security Scan works best with Internet Explorer web brower, in Internet Explorer version 5 and above. If you are using Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 web browser right now, Security Scan can work at its best in checking your computer' security setting.

Symantec Security Scan checks your computer's hacker exposure by checking your internet setting, TCP setting, your email setting, HTTP setting and firewall setting. All these kind of security checkings is free and highly accurate. If doesnt, at least you can use the data from the scanning process to evaluate your computer's security preferences, is it ok or not.

Use Symantec Security Check to evaluate your computer's security settings such as your antivirus setting, firewll setting, email setting, internet setting.

This app will not check for any sign of virus infection. It was designed to help you determined the best setting in your computer to ensure best protection against virus threats from the internet.

Avira - Get To Know This Anti Virus Company

Avira is German-based anti virus company, launched it's first anti virus product in the year 1988, at the time when I was 8 years old. The official website for Avira AntiVir is at www.Avira.com. Avira is rising their product awareness in Malaysia. I always see their advertisement in MajalahPC, the popular computer magazine written in Malay.

Compred to Kaspersky, Avira does not build their regional office in Malaysia. If you want to buy their anti virus software, you can get it via local computer shops or via the internet.

If you're looking for free anti virus software simply for your personal use, you can download Avira AntiVir Personal free anti virus software. Avira uses white and red color as their business color. The same color combination also being used by AirAsia as their corporate color.

Avira official website has 9 different language such as English (UK), Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Italiano. You can select any language to read the website's content. The widely preferred language is English.

At the moment I'm writing this, Avira is running a promotion. If you purchase Avira Premium Security Suite anti virus software, you will get a free software.

The free software is TuneUp Utilities, popular utility software. TuneUp is very useful and I have used it before. It helps you to tweak you computer, change the design, control your RAM amount, cleaning the registry, controlling the startup items so your computer boots fast.

Avira Premium Security Suite would be in the same class with Kaspersky Pure and Norton 360. All of these protection software are complete all-in-one security pack which gives full protection.

Internet scams - 1 million British Pound in Western Union for me?

When opening up my Gmail this evening I was shocked because I received a sum of money of £1,000,000.00 British Pound from Western Union, awaiting to be transferred into my account. As usual, I was highly skeptical, its a internet scam. How could such a big money like landed easily on my door? I have posted the screen shot in the image within this post (click for larger view). I remind you please be aware of any internet scams via email like this, they will give you free money in large sum for an exchange of your personal financial information (you bank account, personal password to verify it is truly your bank account) because they say wanna send you the money, that is their reason. The receiver (me) is not mentioned in the receiver email address, means spammers are using customized software to send similar email to million of internet user all over the world.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 RM25 only (1 year 3PC)

Did you believe it? Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 (1 year 3PC) was being sold as low as RM25 in Lelong.com.my, Malaysian auction site. The seller for this product says in the sales page (screen shot in the image, please click for larger view) the after you buy, the activation code will be sent via email, no shipping fee charged in product price which for me is cool. The good news is, this Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 availabe in 29999 units, I assume maybe the seller copied a lot its original CD, the same product also sold for RM20 buy another seller. Did Kaspersky Malaysia know about it? No, I think not.

LINK: see Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 RM25 only (1 year 3PC) here...

Internet fraud - Yahoo/MSN lottery for RM4,886,038.64

Someone tells you that you won 1,000,000 British Pound in Yahoo/MSN lottery (that will be RM4,886,038.64 Malaysian Ringgit). After reading that suddenly you realized how lucky you are all this time!. Be aware, that is an internet fraud, please be careful when you received an email like this. Luckily, my Gmail account detects this internet fraud email and give me warning, you can see that warning colored in red with white lattering (click for larger view). After reading the email for a while, I come to a conclusion that this fake lucky winner email is intended to steal your online personal information such as you real name, age, address, your job, country and phone number. SO be careful, dont post all of that on Facebook or your Google Profile.

Computer anti virus - AVG 10 2011 installation is slow because it needs internet connection

I've been installing new anti virus for my computer, the AVG 10 2011, year 2010 is still two months to go yet more anti virus vendors are releasing new anti virus for year 2011. The new AVG 10 anti virus is light, load up quickly. Even though the installation file is only 4.5MB, but during the installation process AVG anti virus will ask you to put the internet connection on, why? Because AVG installer file need to download additional installation files from the internet, so it makes installation process takes 35 to 45 minutes to finish up in my computer. AVG says in the website installation process for this new anti virus version will be fast, but in my experience of installing AVG anti virus last two days, installation is slow, updating its virus database may take additional 20-30 minutes.

Kaspersky antivirus trial download

Kaspersky antivirus trial can only be use for 30 days period, but you will get the same protection provided in the full version antivirus software. Kaspersky Malaysia offers two major version of their anti virus for home users, student, professional workers. Kaspersky antivirus 2011 and Kaspersky Internet Security 20110 available for download now, the links provided below from trusted source, Antivirus365.com (Kaspersky Malaysia official eStore). To enable download process, you need to insert your email address first, then click red download button.

Download Kaspersky Anti Virus and Internet Security 2011 trial

Types of computer viruses - how to classify a virus

There are many types of computer viruses - trojan virus, worm, malware, rootkit, downloader virus, spyware, brontox virus. Most of us called all of these as 'virus' generally because we dont know the exact name of the malicious program that infects our computer, so we called it a virus. To classify a virus, you need to check on it's infection style and and the infection effect on your computer. Does the virus makes your computer slow? Does your monitor filled with several pop-out advertisements? Or does your folders being hidden and the fake folders are being created over and over again most of the time? These virus infection signs shows up usually when your anti virus software database is not up to date, even you have anti virus software fully operational and works well.

AVG free version - download AVG 10

AVG Technologies USA, the maker of AVG anti virus released new version of their free anti virus named AVG anti-virus free edition 2011, version number 10.0.1136, installation file sized at 4.09MB which is much smaller than the installation file in AVG free edition version 9.

Download process of this lates AVG free version estimated to reach 5 to 7 minutes depending on your internet connection speed, installation is about 4 to 6 minutes, depending on your computer's RAM amount and system performance. AVG 10 is fully compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system.

Download AVG 10 free version now from Download.com

AVG antivirus software got 316 million downloads

AVG anti virus free edition 2011 has been downloaded 316,652,435 (316 million) times since the the anti virus software available for download worldwide via Download.com website since 1662 weeks ago.

AVG got 1,236,695 total download recently during last week starting 11 October 2010 to 17 October 2010, followed tightly by Avast 5 free anti virus that has been downloaded 111,258,110 times overal, getting 1,069,716 downloads last week in the same time period..

Kaspersky Pure - what makes is different than Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky Internet Security

Kaspersky Pure is all in one antivirus suite. Kaspersky Pure is far more advanced antivirus software than other two antivirus products named Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky Internet Security.

I see Kaspersky Pure has similar strength as Norton 360, the complete all-in-one antivirus package created by Symantec.

If you are someone who are looking for perfection and pure satisfaction in buying antivirus software for your compuer, I fully recommend you to buy Kaspersky Pure.

Why? Because Kaspersky Pure is twice powerful. It has what Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky Internet Security does not has.

These are features Kaspersky Pure has (unavailable in Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky Internet Security)

Password manager with virtual keyboard.
File shredder.
Data back-up/restore.
Data encryption.

Below is the price of Kaspersky Pure sold online at Kaspersky Malaysia website.

Kaspersky Pure for 1 PC: RM260.00

Kasperksy Pure for 2 PC: RM320.00

When buying, please provide your real mailing address and active mobile phone number because Kaspersky Pure will be sent via post mail to your doorstep You can also use your office address or workplace address if you want to make sure the product you bought reach you securely.

Payments can be made using Visa, Master Card, Maybank2u online money transfer or via MEPS FPX online money transfer for easy payments via online banking.

Kaspersky Malaysia - how to send Kaspersky suspected virus found by you

You can contribute something as part of a cyber security community member.

If you found a computer virus, you've stumbled upon a weird program you think it is a new virus or you dont know what is it but similarly looks like a virus to you, you can send it to Kaspersky Lab for further analysis by their computer security experts.

Send the infected file to Kaspersky directly via email to newvirus@kaspersky.com

Kaspersky Lab handles your report seriously while keeping your personal identit as private matters. They will not enclose you name, email and other personal information to other parities.

You can visit Kaspersky Malaysia's physical office at the following address:

Level 11-02, Block A, PJ8
No 23 Jalan Barat, Seksyen 8
46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan , Malaysia

..you can also contact Kaspersky Malaysia directly via phone or fax line via following numbers:

Telephone line: +603 7962 6788, fax line: +603 7962 5999

I was dreaming that maybe someday Kaspersky Malaysia will open up their Sabahan regional office here in Kota Kinabalu, so I have a chance to ask their computer security experts a lot of questions, face to face.

Create password - 10 ways how to create strong password

The 10 ways on how to create strong password are:

1. Your password must contain special characters such as *$^#@ combined with number and letters.

2. A strong password should be in 8 characters long, you need to include letters, numbers and special characters into that 8 charachters capacity.

3. Always use uppercase and lowercase combination at least a character, maximum is 3.

4. Your password does not have a similarity with any kind of words, does not represents any of your personal info such as birhtdate, your wife's birthdate, identification number, your postcode number, address or birthplace name.

5. It does not resembling any of your previous passwords.

6. Warning! Do not use Master Password function in any of your web browsers! (Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome comes with this feature. Please disable them)

7. Do not use your name, your family's name, your lover's name, your computer brand name or your car's plate number as pillar to build your password. Do not use any brand name at all, becuase hacker and cracker can easily guess that by studying your personality, styling and personal preferences.

8. Dont relate your password to any of your personal things.

9. Make the password highly random, spontaneous, made from unexpected weird words.

10. Create a password using a language other than your native language.

For example, if Malay is your native language, you can build up your own strong password in Russian or Turkish language.

If English is your native language and you are Malaysian, you can use Japanese words as your password. Make it sounds like non-Malaysian, just pray a Japanese hacker does not stumbled upon your personal data.

Kaspersky Malaysia - download free SecureView mag written by Kaspersky's computer security experts

Kaspersky Malaysia, the well known antivirus company is now producing its own antivirus magazine. Its free for you to download and read. I will tell you why I think Secureview is special.

I think this is the first time in Malaysia an antivirus company tried hard to educate public how important it is to keep safe from computer virus, especially when browsing the internet. Most of us logged into the internet each morning right now so I think its a better option for us to get to know about computer security.

SecureView mag from Kaspersky Malaysia just reached 2nd edition, written by three Kaspersky's computer security experts.

Their name and computing background were as below:

Brian Krebs (the ex-reporter in Washington Post covering internet security and cyber crime stories)
Joerg Geiger (specialist in IT security, operating system, mobile IT)
Maciej Ziarek (computer science graduate and a specialist in cryptography, wireless network security and social engineering)

Here is the download link: SecureView mag by Kaspersky Malaysia

Cyber security - 8 tips to strengthen your personal security while using the internet in Malaysia

To help you strengthen your cyber security defense while doing things online, here are several tips you should follow. It is for your own safety.

1. Do not rely to any message, email, instant messages, Facebook message or Twitter message asking your personal information such as your bank card PIN number, your identification card number (in Malaysia it called KPT number), your online banking account login name and PIN number, house address, office address and your birthday. If the message if from a person you know, ask why you should give your personal information on the internet, why not in the real world, talking face to face?

2. Do not tell all about you, yourself and yourbackground especially in popular social network websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Friendster, Myspace. If you have a blog, do not tell full stories of yourself.

3. Do not share any of your personal information with someone you didnt know.

4. Choose a nick name while chatting, do not even your real name.

5. If you want to become an internet business owner or a professional blogger, use only a name and do not share a lot of personal stories, becuase anybody can use it for bad purpose.

6. Do a personal search about yourself on the internet, just in case someone copied your identity. This always happened in Facebook, where you didnt know you have several account that are not opened by you, especially if you have a pretty face.

7. Be simple, be humble. Dont SHOW TOO MUCH.

8. Keep any message that you feel threatening you, send it via email directly to Malaysia Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT) at cyber999@cybersecurity.my

Cyber security - What is it?

Cyber security is your personal safety while browsing the internet.

Be aware that internet is a medium for you to communicate, to get entertainment, information and to do business, or even to buy things.

Do not publicly show your personal information, because bad guys can misuses it to do cyber crime using your name and your personal information.

What we call 'cyber' is a big place. When you do something in the internet and people know you and they learn what you do, they can copy your identity. They can do bad things using your personal details. This is the price for being publicly known, so be warned.

I'm looking at cyber security as a huge, untouch segment here in Malaysia. Internet is still new for millions of Malaysians.

All Malaysian newbies were excited to show up their faces, brithplace, birthdate, their job, their siblings, house address and even their income statements at all places online.

In the internet, you can be anybody. Anybody can be you, as long as they know You,as long as they have your personal identity. This is what i called 'personal identity theft'.

Do you feel safe online?

Or do you spreading info about yourself all over the place just to get popular?

Norton antivirus download - Norton Malaysia

I've talked about how to download Norton antivirus and where you can download it from the internet. Now i'm gonna show you the real Norton Malaysia official website, which you can click on to Malaysia.Norton.com

Norton Antivirus 2011 sold at RM79.99, Norton Internet Security 2011 sold at RM108.99 respectively. Norton Malaysia sells antivirus packages in Malaysian Ringgit, gives you huge advantage buying antivirus products locally, save more time, energy and money.

This security product is for ONE pc only per user, means the key cannot be duplicated. You can try any Norton Malaysia antivirus product befor you decided to buy.

Norton antivirus download - Norton antivirus 2011 and Norton Internet Security 2011

Norton is the famous antivirus brand from Symantec, its manufacturer. Do not be fooled by its name. Norton is the product while Symantec is the company who made the product.

If you are in Malaysia and you are looking for Norton antivirus download, you can get it from Symantec Malaysia website. Norton Malaysia is now offering two kind of antivirus suite.

First, the Norton Antivirus 2011 with built-in anti spyware security tool. Second, the Norton Internet Security 2011 which the price is RM30 higher than the other one.

Symantec designed color combination of Yellow-Gold for their new 2011 antivirus suite. Several years ago, Symantec uses Yellow-Black color combination in their antivirus package.

You can buy Norton Antivirus 2011 directly from Norton Malaysia website via secure server purchases. But, you need to use a credit card. If not, you need to have active PayPal account to buy Norton antivirus via the internet.

Free Avast 5.0 anti virus uses beautiful transparent pop up notification

The free Avast 5.0 anti virus is now uses translescent pop up message to tell you it has updated its virus database to the latest edition. Some people may found these screen notification (comes out from your Taskbar) quite annoying, but not for me. It is very useful, because we tend to keep forgetting simple things like updating our anti virus internal database.