Faramir support forums

[fabrice]

* Viruses *
If your machine is infected you are likely to be without virus protection. The first thing to do is to prevent further spreading by shutting down modem/network connections. It's also a good idea to backup your data. Then starts the cleaning... If you are a "regular" internet user you are likely to be infected by a "popular" virus.

- Mc Afee Stinger is tool that removes the most common viruses.

Screenshot of Stinger:



* Adwares, malware, trojans, dialers... *
Those nasty piece of software are installed without your knowledge on your PC. You can find them in other software products (ie: Kazaa, MSN Messenger Plus,...) or as active component intalled by Internet Explorer when you visit a website.

- Lavasoft Ad-Aware detects and clean most of the crap you get when using an unsecure PC online. You might also want to download the latest Lavasoft spyware definition file.

- Spybot Search & Destroy detects and clean most of the spyware crap.

Both of these tools have an update button that downloads the latest definition + search engine. (Check for updates now & Search for updates)

Screenshot of Ad-Aware:


Screenshot of Spybot Search & Destroy:



* Fixing the security holes *
In order to prevent further infections you need:

- Windows Update which is Microsoft Windows patches download page.


* Common sense *
Once your machine is cleaned and patched it still require some work to be bulletproof.

You'll need to have:
- an updated antivirus program. I believe that having no antivirus is better than having a old antivirus. So please keep your antivirus definitions updated.
- an updated firewall.
- an updated operating system.
- get rid of unsecure softwares. (ie: Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Incredimail...)
- keep your softwares updated.

- The 2 most common entry points for viruses/malwares/adwares/*you name* are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook Express. So it's VERY SMART to stop using both of them.
The good idea would be to switch to the Mozilla aviary products: Mozilla Firefox for browsing and Mozilla Thunderbird for email/newsgroups. Both ot these programs are closely followed by the open source developers that fix the critical bugs/security holes pretty fast.

From Security Focus:

[richardhaylock]

Also XoftSpy from ParetoLogic - can be bought online - it picks up the things that the other products mentioned fail to spot.

I use it in conjunction with Internet Security (Norton) AdAware and PanicWare's Pop-Up Stopper, and Norton AV

Best regards

Richard

[fabrice]

Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security are know ressource hogs... it's recommended not to use them unless you want to seriously cripple your machine.

Pop-ups are not issues when you use Firefox instead of the PITA called Internet Explorer. Add No-Script and AdBlock extension and you'll be able to say bye bye to the ads and other annoyances.

If you get a chance give Computer Associates eTrust Antivirus a try... it works on most of the OSes, it's light and efficient.
_________________
Fabrice Roux
C'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron.