Spyware Hunter

Spyware may, probably, be the most intrusive computer virus that has ever been invented. When our computer gets infected with spyware, it can totally invade our privacy. I am much concerned about someone finding and using my passwords and accessing my accounts. If it leads to that, I don’t think I could ever trust using the internet again.

Without knowing it a spyware can get into our computer system easily when we download some software, games and other stuffs from the internet. This sometimes happens when we download a spyware product unknowingly without reading the EULA or End User License Agreement. The fine print may reveal indirectly, of course, that a spyware program is included in the software and by accepting the agreement you also consent to installing the spyware in your computer system. Once the spyware is in your computer it can do as it pleases. It can monitor your activities on the internet, record and use personal information like passwords, use your identity, bring unwanted ads to your computer, and change your browser homepage setting.

Sometimes a spyware can do much more damage than just annoy us with pop-up ads. One type of spyware has the ability to use our resources and make us pay for its own damage. Called the “dialer”, this type of spyware can actually dial phone numbers anywhere in the world and make us pay for the long distance charges.

Before any of these things happen to you, it would be wiser to have some protection for your computer. For instance, does your computer already have the Norton Internet Security? If you have it, make sure it is updated so it can block even the latest computer viruses. But this is not enough; you must also have a couple of spyware scanners installed in your system. Just one spyware scanner is not enough because it may not be able to spot or detect all the spywares already available. Installing all this protection is a small price to pay for the damage that spywares can do to our computer system and even to our personal lives. Some cash loans may be availed of to help you finance the installations of the spyware scanners on your computer system. Remember the saying that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

Online games have gained popularity since the internet has become available to almost everyone around the world. You can play at home, in your jammies, if you want, and challenge people across the globe. Some of the most popular online games are poker, slots and online bingo. Many sites offer tournaments where you can win cash, trips and prizes. These sites often require that you become a member.

To become a member of an online gaming community, you have to give them your email address. Once you do this you will receive newsletters, gaming updates and unfortunately sometimes you get spammed. Have you ever opened your inbox and found that it is full of unwanted emails? Then you know the frustration of being spammed.

How can you tell if your online gaming site will spam you? There are a few clues you can look for to be sure you don’t fall victim to an email inbox full of junk.
• The site requests personal information beyond your name and address. Information that might include your income, hobbies, interests, health issues and any other information that does not pertain to the gaming site.
• There are several affiliate website ads on the gaming site. If you see a lot of ads on the site you can be sure that they have an agreement with those sites to obtain your email address.
• Prizes and other perks require you to fill out forms. They already have your information, why would they need you to keep re-entering it?

While there are several legitimate gaming sites that will not spam you, be careful how much information you give any one site. Some sites sell your email address just like a physical address list is sold in the marketplace. Be careful and be aware. That way your email box doesn’t become a junk box. If you aren’t interested in online games, you can always stick to watching the players of WSOP put on their poker faces.

We just cannot do without ringtones. Can we? The music industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. It might surprise you, but producers and artists prefer releasing ringtones before releasing the songs. Children and teenagers are crazy about ringtones. Today, even a ten-year old child would talk about his favorite ringtone. Mobile phone makers, in fact, do extensive research on the likes and dislikes of children and adolescents, before releasing a new product. Take for example, the iPhone. This product, in spite of its high price, managed to sell millions of units in the US alone. During its early days, ringtones would essentially mean ‘monophonic’ music. Monophonic tones gave way to polyphonic tones. Today, we have real tones (or mp3 ringtones) available for free. Researchers predict that video tones would become incredibly popular in a few years from now.

MP3 ringtones can be downloaded from the Internet. However, medical practitioners believe that the signals (waves) emitted by a mobile phone can generate health-related problems, particularly in children. Is there a solution? The concept of ‘silent ringtones’ is becoming popular these days. These ringtones can only be heard by children- they are inaudible to adults. Scientists believe that with age, the ability to hear high frequency sounds diminishes. Silent ringtones, therefore, can save children from potential hearing problems.

Have you heard of mosquito mp3 ringtones? These ringtones are very popular among children and teenagers. Mosquito mp3 ringtones cannot be heard by people over twenty as these ringtones are too high pitched. These ringtones are increasingly being used in classrooms. Ultrasonic ringtones emit a harmless tone that only children can hear. It is important that we take care of our child’s heath. Exposing children to low-pitched ringtones might result in the birth of ear infections and diseases. The Internet abounds in information related to ringtones for kids. As responsible parents, we should know what’s best for our children.

Online games are great for a lot of reasons. For one, they teach children how to be online citizens – as cloud computing gains dominance over every aspect of our business world and our culture in general, being able to get online and think in online terms is only optional if they’re going to be poor and rely exclusively on old fashioned types of human interaction – which are being increasingly supplanted with social networking tools and texting, anyway. For another, friendships formed online, even at a young age, can last into adulthood and yield opportunities down the road. Also, in the online world, kids can make the inevitable social mistakes we all make, without being socially branded or physically threatened.

But the Internet is a lawless place where everyone needs to keep reasonably aware, lest they become a victim.

Obviously, your children should NEVER under any circumstances arrange to meet with someone they have met through an online game. No matter how safe and harmless the person may seem to be online, their intentions can never be known through the filter of a computer screen. A good corollary to that is to make sure your children retain absolute secrecy regarding their personal details, including their social security number, last name, physical address and telephone number. Even infants can have their identities stolen, so make sure your children are aware that, for the most part, real life information needs to stay offline.

Also, make sure your children realize that since real life and online are separate; they need to be kept in balance with one another. Spending all of one’s time online leads to an unhealthy body and chronically strained eyes.

At the recently held Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft was reported to have said that it has selected F-Secure as the 1st data security purveyor for Windows Home Server. Redmond-based giant said that F-Secure software would interoperate with Windows Home Server to shield consumers against PC viruses and other threats from the Internet and mobile networks.

Windows Home Server is an approaching Microsoft solution to help families without difficulty unify, share and defend their digital assets, like photos, music and videos. F-Secure offers security against virus and spyware attacks, guards against riskware and also is included with scanning of unseen nasty software (rootkit protection).

Steven VanRoekel, director of Windows Server Solutions at Microsoft said,

F-Secure has a strong track record of providing easy-to-use security technology that reliably protects consumers against rapidly evolving threats. We are pleased to work with F-Secure to help customers secure their digital memories and experiences.

Kimmo Alkio, CEO at F-Secure Corporation was quoted as saying,

This collaboration fits well in our product portfolio and we are proud to work with Microsoft to offer customers a solution to support Windows Home Server. We look forward to a continued strong cooperation with Microsoft.

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Recently, members of the hacking community, willing to help Microsoft, descended at Redmond, Washington, to depict the software giant where it has wronged. This time the company’s newest Blue Hat conference, which is generally held twice a year, aimed at mobile security, hardware hacking, Microsoft’s security tools, as well as the secretive vulnerability economy.

Microsoft started hosting these events two years back as a way to promote talk between the company’s security team and external security researchers, lots of of whom have been criticizing the company’s move to security. The name Blue Hat emanates from the Black Hat security conferences - the “Blue” part originates from the color of badges that are worn by Microsoft staffers its campus.

This is the 5th series of Blue Hat briefings and usually Microsoft is tight-lipped about the list of attendees and presenters. IDG’s Robert McMillan could get the names of some hackers on the speaker list - Robert Hansen (RSnake), David Maynor, John Hering and Rob Thomas - however information are very inadequate.

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At EMC World in Orlando, Cisco and RSA recently announced to work together to make the deliverance of encryption products for data at rest on tape, disk and other media. The technology, known as Storage Media Encryption, operates on a Cisco MDS 9500 or 9200 storage blade in the company’s MDS 9000 director-level switch and makes use of RSA’s Key Manager technology to have power over access and use of encrypted systems.

Storage Media Encryption is touted to act as an option to appliance-based approaches from Decru, NeoScale, Vormetric and CipherMax. Users’ that are likely to make use of the Cisco/RSA approach in the medical and financial-services industries, where the safe-keeping of records and financial info is given top priority. At the outset, Storage Media Encryption can be availed just for magnetic tapes. Cisco looks forward to make it available till the end of the year. A later release is said to expand it for deployment with additional storage media.

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Security vendor Secunia has reported that users of Mozilla Firefox are more likely to have deployed the latest security updates than the Web surfers who are operating Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Opera. This could be made clear with the truth that users have got to opt to utilize Firefox, maybe for the reason that they think the browser more secure, and the integrated updater within the open-source browser.

The analysis of Secunia is founded on over 350,000 software checks, carried out over the last five months by its free Secunia Software Inspector service. Secunia said 5.19 per cent of all Firefox 2 users had winked at security updates. Whereas for IE6, which is utilized by almost half of all Web surfers, that number was 9.61 per cent. Microsoft’s newest IE7 browser had a number a lot closer to Firefox’s findings: 5.40 per cent.

Opera had been the least feasible to be patched: 11.96 per cent of all Opera 9.x browsers were missing updates. Secunia also claimed to have detected that 28 per cent of all softwares on PCs that were scanned by Opera were not completely updated, which means browsers are much more possible to be patched than other types of software.

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Be careful PC users while you are coming across PDF files appearing to be your credit card report, personal financial statement or balance report. The security firm, F-Secure has found out the PDF files containing virus that poses security threat to your computer.

The security firm claimed that an anonymous has already sent tens of thousands of the contaminated files via email. These emails have no texts, only PDF attachments. Once you open them, the attachment uploads a malicious programme from a Malaysian server.

The security firm have received some of the attachments like report.pdf, debt.207.pdf and overdraft.2007.10.26 etc.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure said,

We are worried about this case, as PDF attachments are typically not filtered at e-mail gateways.

Via: Zdnet

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Last week, Symantec pre-launched its Norton Mobile Security suite for Windows Mobile Smartphones, now csoonline.com reports that the security specialist is delaying it until as late as December of this year. Perhaps Symantec was somewhat annoyed of the reactions in the blogsphere without having made out a single encouraging posting.

Symantec spokesperson stated Tuesday in an E-Mail:

After some review, we’ve decided to integrate this product into the cycle of our 2008 Norton product line launching in the fall timeframe.

Symantec further maintained that nonetheless, the corresponding enterprise product, known as Symantec Mobile Security Suite 5.0, is even now planned to be rolled in June.

Symantec reveals that the Windows Mobile software will be integrated with anti-virus, anti-spam, firewall and data encryption capabilities, to carry on data secure, even if the smartphone is mislaid. Symantec is also said to put up for sale an optional VPN module for users who desire to securely hook up with their corporate servers.

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