BitDefender 2010 Security Editions Launched - Friendly Computers

BitDefender has introduced latest customized editions of its Internet Security
and Antivirus solutions for its consumers through Unistal. - Friendly Computers
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BitDefender Internet Security 2010 locks out viruses, hackers and spam, while providing parental control and firewall protection. BitDefender 2010 features Active Virus Control security system, which constantly monitors all the processes on your PC, blocking any malicious behaviour before it can cause any damage. BitDefender's optimized scanning avoids scanning of files that are known to be safe. As a result, BitDefender 2010 scans your PC in half the time needed by previous versions, while using fewer resources.

BitDefender 2010 also features three dashboard views - Novice, Intermediate, and Expert - to better accommodate users with different levels of PC knowledge.

Even the parental control is better than earlier versions. The Parental Control module features a newly added reporting system allowing parents to view what websites their children visit. Moreover, parents can set specific time intervals in which their children are allowed to access the Internet or use certain applications. BitDefender detects and blocks attempts to change critical system files or registry entries on your PC and warns you about attacks performed by code injection (DLL injection).

BitDefender Antivirus 2010 provides advanced proactive protection against viruses, spyware, phishing attacks and identity theft, without slowing down your PC.

Other features of importance that BitDefender Internet Security 2010 and BitDefender Antivirus 2010 have include the following:


• Blocks spyware programs that track your online activities
•Blocks web pages that attempt to steal your credit card data
•Prevents personal information from leaking via e-mail, Web or instant messaging
•Instant Messaging Encryption keeps your conversations private on Yahoo! and MSN Messenger
•Reduces the system load and avoids requesting user interaction during game play
•Laptop Mode prolongs battery life

Bit Defender Internet Security 2010 - 3 Users - is available for Rs. 1,750 (MRP), while you can get BitDefender Anti Virus 2010 - 1 User - for Rs. 750 (MRP).

For further details on BitDefender 2010, visit www.bitdefender.com/world
You can download the demo from www.unistal.com/bitdefender.html

Source: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/BitDefender_2010_Security_Editions_Launched/551-108545-582.html

Virus can put child porn on your computer - Friendly Computers

St. Petersburg, Florida - Experts are warning about a new virus that can be used by pedophiles to store child porn on your computer. The worst part is, the victims are not aware that the child porn is being stored on their computers. - Friendly Computers

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"It's the worst possible scenario that you could have," said Robert Dobbs with the Geek Squad.

Dobbs tells 10 Connects they have not had any local cases, but says there have been several cases nationally.

The Associated Press recently finished an investigation and found cases in which innocent people were branded as pedophiles because the virus attacked their computer. In the case of Michael Fiola, the AP says he was arrested and charged before he was finally exonerated. Fiola says he spent $250,000 to clear his name.

To best avoid getting the virus, Dobbs says follow these tips:

•Have an antivirus program that automatically scans your harddrive.
•Make sure you empty out your temporary internet files.
•Avoid file sharing websites.

Source: http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=121424&catid=8

Computer questions answered - Friendly Computers

READERS have raised queries about the need for virus protection while another is off around Australia and wants to keep in touch on the cheap. - Friendly Computers

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Q I am running Spybot, Avast and PC Firewall. Do I need any additional protection for my laptop?

A It depends on what you do with the laptop. These free programs are all fine but they are not integrated so viruses and spyware can slip between the cracks. My tip for 2010 is to buy a fully integrated internet security suite like AVG 9.0 or Norton Internet Security. In my opinion the risks are now too great to rely on freeware security programs if you plan to do internet banking or pay your bills online.

Q I have been using AVG 8, Spybot, CleanUp and, occasionally, CCleaner without problems. I took my PC tower for a clean and service and the company removed AVG 8 and installed an Avast anti-virus program. They also reinstalled Spybot, deleting Tea Timer. Their reasoning for the AVG 8 change was that "it hasn't been any good since December and doesn't remove all the viruses". Is there any truth to this?

A There are so many myths out there and most are based on personal preference or bias, not experience. Please refer to the previous question on freeware virus and spyware. I think AVG 9 is one of the best and the free version is certainly more fully featured than most other free programs but it's not enough to cover all contingencies.

Q My wife and I are about to embark on a caravan trip around Australia and would like your advice on the cheapest and most efficient means of keeping in touch via email. Public libraries are useful but are often booked out.

A The best answer, though not the cheapest, is to get a Telstra NextG smartphone that allows tethering (connecting to a PC or laptop via USB) and buy a data pack from Telstra. You can get 150Mb per month for $10 and it will work in most places and should cover monthly email access unless you are sending lots of photos. You don't need to buy a top-end smartphone to get tethering. If you have WiFi in your notebook you can also use it at net cafes but be sure to have a full internet security suite like AVG 9.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26556584-8362,00.html

Expect new, evolving computer viruses in 2010 - Friendly Computers

McAfee is becoming the Nostradamus of the antivirus software world. - Friendly Computers
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This week, the Santa Clara, Calif., firm came out with its 2010 threat predictions report. Among the dire predictions — cybercriminals will target social networking sites and third-party applications and use more complex Trojans and botnets to build and execute attacks, according to McAfee Labs.

Still, McAfee Labs also predicts 2010 will be a good year for law enforcement’s fight against cybercrime.

"Over the past decade, we’ve seen a tremendous improvement in the ability to successfully monitor, uncover and stop cybercrime" said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Labs. "We’re now facing emerging threats from the explosive growth of social networking sites, the exploitation of popular applications and more advanced techniques used by cybercriminals, but we’re confident that 2010 will be a successful year for the cybersecurity community."

Here are some online threats to watch out for:

Social networks will be the vehicle for emerging threats. Facebook, Twitter and third-party applications on those sites will make computers more vulnerable to attacks. Cybercriminals will take advantage of friends trusting friends to get users to click on malicious links. The use of abbreviated URLs on sites like Twitter makes it easier for criminals to lure people onto a bad site.

Malware. Internet surfers will continue to shift their activities away from their desktop to online applications, allowing malware writers to prey on them.

Trojans. Trojans, which can spread bad software to computers, will become more sophisticated in 2010 and easily get around current protections used by banks. New techniques include a Trojan’s ability to silently interrupt a legitimate transaction to make an unauthorized withdrawal and simultaneously check the user’s transaction limits to avoid alerting the bank.

Cybercriminals. They will target popular programs such as Adobe Reader and Flash.

In 2009, McAfee Labs saw an increase in attacks targeting client software. Cybercriminals will target Adobe products, primarily Acrobat Reader and Flash, two of the most widely deployed applications in the world. McAfee Labs expects Adobe product exploitation will likely surpass that of Microsoft Office applications in 2010.

Botnets. The versatile software will spread stolen computing power and bandwidth around the globe.

Source: http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2009/12/expect_new_evolving_computer_v.html

XSS Attacks Pushing Fake Antivirus - Friendly Computers

According to the security researchers at Zscaler (a cloud security company), malware distributors are exploiting security flaws in news.com.au, lawyer.com, appleinsider.com and many other legitimate websites to thrust fake antivirus software on unwitting computer users. - Friendly Computers

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Zscaler states that the currently spreading attacks are worth noting, as they exploit cross-site scripting or XSS flaws to conceal malicious links inside the URLs of reputed websites. Consequently, people in the hope of viewing websites that they know as well as trust land on a page, which make them think that their PCs are infected by malware.

Mike Geide, Senior Security Researcher at Zscaler, said that the interesting fact about the attacks was that they had embedded iframes to divert people elsewhere, as reported by The Register on December 16, 2009.

It is still not known who the individual or group of individuals is responsible for the XSS attacks. However, it is not difficult to understand the motive behind these attacks, which is to exploit people's faith on a familiar website so that malware distributors can load fake anti-virus software on the maximum number of computers possible.

Moreover, these malware distributors also exploit the situation of a large time gap between the injection of malicious software into users' computers and the development of an antivirus product by AV firms to detect and block that software.

As earlier exploration of such AV software has indicated, cyber criminals, who thrust fake AV programs, make huge amounts of dollars every month.

Further, hijacking of legitimate websites for distributing fake antivirus is not anything new. Earlier this year (2009), criminals hijacked the website of NY Times for the same purpose and soon thereafter the Gizmodo site as well.

In fact, security companies describe FAKEAV as a rising hidden threat. Over the recent years, this threat has been escalating vastly. Computer security company 'PandaLabs' substantiated this with its detection of 374,000 FAKEAVs during Q2 2009. McAfee, another security company, too notified a similar trend.

Finally, it can be said that the threat of fake antivirus requires to be tackled urgently.

Source: http://www.spamfighter.com/News-13664-XSS-Attacks-Pushing-Fake-Antivirus.htm

You Don't Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows; Here's Why - Friendly Computers

One of the most persistent myths about Windows is that you need to reinstall the operating system regularly to keep it running at top performance. Let's take a look at the real problem and how to fix it. - Friendly Computers

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Today we're talking about the myth that Windows slows down over time, and how to solve the problem. The reality is that Windows doesn't slow down if you just take care of your PC a little more. Follow these procedures, and you won't have to wonder if spending hours backing up data, installing from disc, and re-installing your essential applications is really necessary.

What Does Slow Windows Down Over Time?
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that your Windows PC will never slow down—because for many people, they almost always do. What actually slows your PC down are too many poorly written applications that stay resident in memory and waste CPU cycles, having too many badly written low-level applications that hook into Windows, or running more than one antivirus application at a time. And of course, if you've run your PC's hard drive out of space, you can hardly blame Windows for that.

If you aren't getting the picture, the problem is usually the person behind the keyboard that installed too many junk applications in the first place. More gently put, it's often that (very well-meaning) person's gradual easing of their safeguards and cleaning regimens as time goes by.

Stop Installing Junk Applications
Installing software should be thought of like feeding your PC. If you constantly feed your PC garbage apps, it's going to get sick and won't be able to run fast anymore. These poorly written applications clutter your drive with unnecessary DLL files, add always-resident Windows services when they don't need to, bloat up your registry, and add useless icons to your system tray that waste even more memory and CPU cycles. Usually you can get away with using a few terrible applications, but as you continue to install more and more of them, your PC will slow down to a crawl.

Be Smarter About What You Do Install
We feature and recommend a lot of software applications around here, but you should keep in mind that we aren't trying to tell you to install every single one of them at the same time-just install the applications that you actually need and you'll generally prevent the dreaded format and reinstall.

Here's a few tips to help you know what applications you should be careful with:

Apps that function as an Explorer plug-in, because they directly hook into the shell and any problem will make your entire PC slow or in the worst case, crash repeatedly.
Antivirus applications are notorious for slowing your PC down, and you should never, ever, ever use more than one real-time antivirus application at a time. We recommend Microsoft Security Essentials as a free, fast, and awesome antivirus tool.
Anything that says it will "Speed Up Your PC" or "Optimize Your RAM" will most likely slow it down, or best case, do nothing at all. Avoid these like the plague.
Make sure to install official system drivers from the manufacturer website. Drivers have a huge impact on performance, and you want to have stable, updated drivers.
Registry cleaners are a mixed bag, and really aren't going to speed up your PC in most cases. The biggest problem, however, is that too many of the commercial registry cleaners set themselves to run at startup in the system tray, wasting your memory and CPU cycles.
You should strongly consider the idea of using portable applications wherever possible, since their self-contained nature means they won't clutter up the rest of your PC with things you don't need.
Keep Your Computer Clean and Trim
Once you've rid yourself of your junk application habit and resolved to only use healthy, useful applications, you'll want to make sure to keep your PC clean of any remaining clutter that doesn't need to be there. You can set up a shortcut to manually run CCleaner silently with the push of a button, but your best bet is to set up CCleaner to run automatically on a schedule, so you don't have to remember to do it.

Since CCleaner is only going to clean up temporary files, you'll still need a good solution for keeping the rest of your PC clean-and Lifehacker's own Belvedere can help you automate your self-cleaning PC or automatically clean up your download folder.

With all of this automated file deletion going on, your hard drive is likely to get a bit fragmented. If you're already running Windows 7 or Vista, automatic defrag comes out of the box and probably shouldn't be messed with, but Windows XP users will need to use Windows Tasks to setup a schedule and automatically defrag their drives.

Use a Virtual Machine or Sandbox to Test Software
If you still want to test out all of the latest software, including apps that look a bit rough around the edges, your best bet is to use a virtual machine to test out anything before putting it onto your primary operating system. You can install all of your software in an XP or Windows 7 VM just like it was a real PC, and with the latest VMWare player releases, you can even enable Windows Aero in a guest VM. If you are new to the idea and need some more help, you should check out our beginner's guide to creating virtual machines in VirtualBox, or Windows 7 users can check out our guide to using XP Mode. If you don't want to go the virtual machine route, Windows XP and Vista users can alternatively use Windows SteadyState to protect their PC and roll back all of the changes on a reboot.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5435523/you-dont-need-to-regularly-reinstall-windows-heres-why

The new look of Mobile security - Friendly Computers

BURLINGAME, USA: Our phones are becoming more like computers with every passing day. The good news is that we can take our data anywhere and work wherever we'd like. The bad news is that our phones are becoming more vulnerable to spyware, viruses and other attacks. - Friendly Computers
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A start-up called Lookout is trying to make phones safer and views itself as the "Symantec or McAfee of the mobile space." In 2010, the company will offer software that can scan phones to determine which apps are safe and which are not. "Applying PC solutions to a mobile problem just won't work," says Lookout Chief Executive John Haring.

Yahoo! BuzzHere's how Lookout's technology works: You download the software, sign up for an account and configure the options you want to enable. The software offers anti-virus, data backup and device location. Then, when you download a new app from, say, the Android Marketplace, Lookout's software automatically scans the app and alerts you to take action if an app contains spyware or other malware.

"As marketplaces become more open, and a guy from Romania is next to Google, it becomes hard to tell what's good and what's not," says Lookout Chief Technologist Kevin Mahaffey. "We see a tremendous need for someone to pass an opinion."

Lookout's technology works on Microsoft's ( MSFT - news - people ) Windows Mobile, Google's Android, Apple's ( AAPL - news - people ) iPhone and Research In Motion's ( RIMM - news - people ) BlackBerry platforms.

Haring says Lookout will release all of the applications in 2010, and begin development for the Symbian platform, the world's most popular mobile operating system. For now the software is free to use, and Lookout plans to introduce premium features and subscription accounts later next year.

Source: http://www.ciol.com/Technology/Security/Feature/The-new-look-of-Mobile-security/231209129273/0/