Adware dominates PC malware infections. Users are still the weakest link.
Adware rather than spyware is the most common problem code on PCs, according to a recent survey of infected PCs. The research, conducted by privacy company Webroot, found that seven of the top 10 types of malware were related to advertising, usually redirecting searches or monitoring user activity to display targeted advertising. Two of the 10 are re-diallers and one is a key-logger for stealing security codes.
“Our most recent research shows that spyware writers are continuing to innovate and find new, more deviant ways to infiltrate systems,” said Richard Stiennon, vice president of threat research at Webroot.”The increased presence of hijackers, diallers and key-loggers in our findings demonstrates that the new trend is to go straight for the jugular. CoolWebSearch, a particularly nasty hijacking program with dozens of iterations, was found on nearly 10 per cent of all audited systems.”CoolWebSearch and the rest of the top five in Webroot’s list were all advertising-based. This malware is designed to divert web searches to other domains to drive up traffic for specific sites or display certain adverts based on computer users’ activities.
But these are consumers make it easy for e-commerce hackers
US consumers are unwittingly helping hackers target e-business firms by leaving themselves “woefully unprotected” from spam, key-logging and phishing attacks, research has claimed.
A newly published poll of 11,000 US residential email users and small to medium sized businesses found that users are the weakest link for banks, retailers and other online businesses, offering hackers “an easy way in”.
The study, commissioned by email filtering managed service providers, indicated that almost two thirds of consumers have no anti-spam filtering installed.
However, the report noted that it is not financially or technically viable for residential users or small businesses to arm their desktop with all the filters required to provide corporate-level protection. Over half of consumers recognise that multiple scanners are now required.
“It is in the banks’ and retailers’ interests to get consumer protection right, whether by approaching government, endorsing those ISPs that offer sufficient protection or paying for secure telecoms infrastructure (e.g. VPNs) for their client base.”
The results of the survey arrived in the same week that HSBC announced that it may refuse customers access to online banking unless they show that they have adequate protection.
In the fight against credit card fraud Mastercard has closed down 1,000 sites containing details of 35,000 credit cards.
Spyware can be installed on your company computer without your knowledge and can use keystroke logging techniques to collect passwords you enter, your bank account numbers and PINs, your credit card numbers, and other personal information. The effects of this identity theft can be costly and very time consuming to rectify. Everyone should take steps to detect and remove any spyware running on their computers, and to guard against its future installation.
A related category of software, adware, may cause pop-up advertisements to appear on your screen, change your home page, disrupt your network access, and reduce the stability and usability of your system. The products mentioned below can help you detect, remove, and protect your computer from both these types of attack.
Spyware is a significant problem for all Windows users. If you use Windows, you must have at least one spyware detection program installed on your computer (in addition to your virus protection program and your frewall). At this writing, adware and spyware are not significant issues for Macintosh users.
That’s why firewalls and antivirus software are needed to keep your computer of computer network secure.
Network security consists of the provisions made in an underlying computer network infrastructure, policies adopted by the network administrator to protect the network and the network-accessible resources from unauthorized access and the effectiveness (or lack) of these measures combined together. How different is it from computer security? In plain words…
Securing any network infrastructure is like securing possible entry points of attacks on a country by deploying appropriate defense. Computer security is more like providing means of self-defense to each individual citizen of the country. The former is better and practical to protect the civilians from getting exposed to the attacks. The preventive measures attempt to secure the access to individual computers–the network itself–thereby protecting the computers and other shared resources such as printers, network-attached storage connected by the network. Attacks could be stopped at their entry points before they spread. As opposed to this, in computer security the measures taken are focused on securing individual computer hosts. A computer host whose security is compromised is likely to infect other hosts connected to a potentially unsecured network. A computer host’s security is vulnerable to users with higher access privileges to those hosts.
Network security starts from authenticating any user. Once authenticated, firewall enforces access policies such as what services are allowed to be accessed by the network users. Though effective to prevent unauthorized access, this component fails to check potentially harmful contents such as computer worms being transmitted over the network. An intrusion prevention system (IPS)[1] helps detect and prevent such malware. IPS also monitors for suspicious network traffic for contents, volume and anomalies to protect the network from attacks such as denial of service. Communication between two hosts using the network could be encrypted to maintain privacy. Individual events occurring on the network could be tracked for audit purposes and for a later high level analysis.
Honeypots, essentially decoy network-accessible resources, could be deployed in a network as surveillance and early-warning tools. Techniques used by the attackers that attempt to compromise these decoy resources are studied during and after an attack to keep an eye on new exploitation techniques. Such analysis could be used to further tighten security of the actual network being protected
Detecting and Removing Spyware
Computer anti-virus software is extremely helpful, but it will only catch viruses that it KNOWS about — that is, viruses that it’s already been programmed to catch. Nowadays, unfornately, anti-virus software can easily be disabled by the latest viruses.
As part of the service, Joe NYC will check your anti-virus software to determine if you have an effective anti-virus program, and that it has the latest updates — Joe NYC can configure your anti-virus software to get the latest updates automatically for you.
If you have a computer virus.
Particularly bad computer viruses can be difficult to remove, but Joe NYC has the equipment and expertise to remove them for you — with on-site pickup and delivery of your computer.
If you suspect that your computer has a virus, or you need help with anti-virus software, call Joe NYC Expert Computer Consultation immediately at (212)777-2986.