Category: Security

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Security

How To Protect Your Computer From Rootkits ?

How To Protect Your Computer From Rootkits ?

There are number of vulnerabilities and hazards present in the internet, from scams like phishing to applications that endanger the integrity of our computer such as rootkits. Today we are going to teach you the way to protect your computer from rootkit, but we must first be clear about what they are and how they affect us.

How To Protect Your Computer From Rootkits ?

What Are Rootkits ?

Rootkit is an application that accesses the system and intercepts the functionality by making use of system resources. A rootkit can hide in the system so as to be virtually invisible. They also tend to hide certain processes, directories, files, and registry keys and even install their drivers and services on the system, of course, being totally invisible.

In What Way Rootkits Harm Your System ?

Rootkits could be considered as the defender implementation of the virus, i.e, if a virus is installed on your operating system it is likely that any updated antivirus is able to detect and remove it, because after an analysis will find a way or another. But if the virus carries a rootkit then it will be more difficult or impossible to detect by a common virus , because when the antivirus request information from the system or the virus itself, the rootkit will falsify the information in such a way that it is not a dangerous object.

How Do I Can Protect My Computer From This Rootkits ?

Luckily on the market variety of free apps for observing changes in the system and patterns of action of rootkits to detect and subsequently eliminate them.

One of the best applications for this task is Sophos Anti-Rootkit, which can be used in parallel to your regular antivirus since it don’t intercept their work and you can download it at the end of the article.

Its operation is very simple, we only install and click on Start Scan and let the application work. Once completed, we only need to click on ” Clean up checked items ” to effectively remove all traces of rootkit.

Sophos | Anti-Rootkit

Categories
PC Hacks Security

Easy Way To Remove Virus From Your Flash Memory (Pendrive) ?

Easy Way To Remove Virus From Your Flash Memory ( Pendrive ) ?

Firstly perform a virus scan on your flash memory. Performing a virus scan can determine whether there is a virus in memory or not. If you find one, remove it. This may prevent you from having to perform the following steps but remember removing it using these techniques will save you from many problems.

A computer virus is a malicious program that can cause many negative effects on your computer. They can spread from computer to computer in many different ways, including through the USB ( Universal Serial Bus), such as external hard drives or flash memories. In some cases removing a virus from your computer or device can be difficult, but not impossible. Here’s a guide to teach you exactly how to remove a virus from a flash memory.

Steps To Remove Virus From Your Flash Memory Sticks (Pen Drives):

Save The Required Files :

Do not copy the entire folders! As there are hidden files that could be viruses. Copy the files manually one by one. Do not store executable or compressed files. If you need the information in an archive, then “carefully” save the extracted information. This could be a tad time taking for the first time but you’ll only understand its advantage once you get through.

Format The Flash Memory :

Press ” Winkey + R ” to open the Run dialog box and type cmd, then hit ENTER. Now the command prompt will be displayed, now type ” format X:/ “. Make sure that you replace the letter X with the letter corresponding to the flash memory .

Easy Way To Remove Virus From Your Flash Memory ( Pendrive ) ?

To determine the drive letter of the flash memory, open My Computer and look for the flash memory. It should say something along the lines as ” flash drive ( E : ) “. In this case, the letter ” E ” may be different on your computer, depending on how many storage units you have.

Backup The Files :

Copy the files back to the flash memory that you had backed up on your computer. After the memory has been formatted, everything will have been removed, including viruses. It is now safe to copy the files back to your flash drive.

Advice :

Examine your computer after doing this, because the virus may have migrated from the USB stick to your hard drive. Try to scan all the files that you copied to your computer and check if they are safe and they are not infected.

Warning :

All your files may also be infected in some case, so if you can’t afford to lose an infected document or a picture, it is better to print and then scan back to your computer.

Categories
PC Hacks Security System Performance

How To Remove Different Viruses Using CMD (Command Prompt) ?

How To Different Remove Viruses Using CMD ?

Are you having problems with any of the viruses ? Then we are here to help you out. In most of the cases the antivirus software that is installed in your computer removes the virus, but if the problem persists then here are the methods to remove all that virus manually and easily.

Steps To Remove Virus Using CMD :

Step 1 : Open Command Prompt :

Just Press ” Winkey + R ” and type cmd in the displayed run dialog box.

Step 2 : Move on to the Drive :

Lets us assume that the virus is present in the C drive , If you are in any other directory of C drive like “ C:\Users\ ” then use the DOS command ” cd.. ” until you get ” C:\> ” .

Step 3 : Type The Code :

Now just type ” attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf ” , and then press Enter. Now if there is no virus in there then it will display ” File Not Found -autorun.inf ” , if there’s any virus present then just type ” del autorun.inf ” and press Enter. Follow the same procedure for all other drives and finally scan your computer for virus.

How To Different Remove Viruses Using CMD (Command Prompt) ?

How To Remove The Shortcut Virus Using Command Prompt?

These are the viruses that convert all data in your flash drives or hard drives to shortcuts. Just follow the below given steps to remove any flash drive shortcut virus and get back your files.

Steps To Remove Shortcut Virus From Pendrive :

Step 1 : Open Command Prompt :

Just Press ” Winkey + R ” and type cmd in the displayed run dialog box.

Step 2 : Type The Code :

Move on to your flash drive directory and just type the following command ” del *.lnk ” and then press Enter. Now just type ” attrib -h -r -s /s /d e :\*.* ” and press enter.

Note : If you feel any difficulty in typing the code then just enable the copy-paste mode in your command prompt and just paste it .

How To Restore Or Get Back The Files :

You can retrieve your files by WinRAR .

  • Open WINRAR .
  • Browse to the location of the USB key or the location of the PC folder.
  • Copy and paste the files wherever you want.
  • Format your USB key.

How To Remove The Empty Folder Virus Using Command prompt ?

The flash drive may have some files, but they appear empty! , then this is because of a virus known as Empty folder virus. Follow the steps mentioned below to remove virus folders and recover your files.

Steps To Remove The Empty Folder Virus :

Step 1 : Open Command Prompt :

Just Press ” Winkey + R ” and type cmd in the displayed run dialog box.

Step 2 : Type The Code :

Type the following command line ” attrib -h -r -s /s /d x:*.* “.

Here the element ” x ” should be replaced with the hard disk letter that is assigned to flash drive that is attached into the computer.

How To Different Remove Viruses Using CMD ?

Lets assume that the flash drive shows the alphabet drive as ” M “, then type the following command ” attrib -h -r -s /s /d m:*.* ” and press Enter.

 

Categories
PC Hacks Security Web Guides

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

Today Internet is a tool that is almost mandatory. It also presents an opportunity to hackers for taking advantage of the ignorance of users. Due to which large sums of computers are effected simply by launching virus into a network in order to steal information. To prevent this, we have many software that help us to protect our information known as antivirus and firewall, but this time we are going to use the Google translation tool to browse anonymously and avoid being tracked.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

Google Translate is a tool with two uses. One is well known that is for which it was created, to translate between different languages ( both words and / or phrases ). The second use is for safe navigation , it is a useful tool for when you don’t want to be reached and ensures a safe browsing session. It may also be useful in accessing the pages that are restricted by location. Now as we are going to use Google translate as our Proxy server, we need to know what actually a proxy is ? , Roughly we can say that proxy server acts as a mediator between the server that hosts the web and the thing we are searching. A quick example is given below :

Connecting without a web proxy  : Computer > Server that hosts the web

Connection web proxy                   : Computer > Proxy Server > Server that hosts the web

Does Really Using The Google Translate As Your Proxy Server Hides Your Navigation ?

 

To show its operation, we are going to consider a website that is used for getting our public IP address. Now we are going to perform this operation with and without proxy.

To begin just move on to Google Translate and paste or write the website that you want to access via proxy.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

Then click on the link displayed in the translated section , which is the link to the website in a hidden mode ( Hidden navigation ). Now you can see in the below image that it shows the IP address of the Google, as we just used the google server for our navigation.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

In this below image you can see that the IP address had been changed as we are navigating without any proxy. This is the actual  public IP address of the computer.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

Now let’s try the IP localization, proceed the same way to explore IP, this website also gives the information related to the ISP ( internet service provider ) and the present location of the IP address.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

As you see in the above image, it is giving the location and the ISP that are not ours. As  we are using Google proxy ( That is the location of google server ). Now in the below image we can see that its showing the actual location and ISP of ours this is because in the above case we have hidden our navigation by using proxy.

How To Use Google As Your Proxy Server For Secure Navigation

In short, we have a free tool that offers the possibility of anonymity on the Internet . It is also an easy fast to use tool. It also has the advantage that we can use it from any device, browser and / or computer and the navigation is totally safe.

Categories
PC Hacks Security

How Your PC Can Be Spied On Through Your Keyboard Keystrokes

Know What's Happening On Your Computer By Using Your Keyboard

There are times when for some reason we need to know what is going on with our computer, like say, what sites are being accessed more or just what content is being conveyed through the keyboard.

An application used for getting all such information is the ” keylogger “.  It’s only function is to capture all the keystrokes made ​​by the keyboard and send the log to a file or an email.

Spy On Your Computer By Using Your Keyboard Keystrokes

This practice may seem intrusive and perhaps you got it in a wrong way, that it could hamper our privacy. But here we are only intending to protect our PC by knowing what kind of pages are being accessed or what data is being deployed over the network with it.

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Spyware is using software for spying over someone’s PC or devices. Once spyware is installed you can see performance of your computer drop. The main symptom

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There are many applications that can perform this task, some of them are paid and the others are free but here we have picked out the best i.e. ” Revealer Keylogger “.

It offers the keystrokes monitoring system for free and also has a screenshot monitoring system which is available with the paid version.

Its operation is as simple as clicking on Start button to start the recording and to stop it, just click on the Stop button which is beside the start button. It also gives you a privilege to save the log file as txt or as html format.

These Are The Special Features Of This Keystrokes Monitoring Software

  1. It can detect the keystrokes in any language.
  2. A simple anti-keylogger can not detect its presence.
  3. It is password protected.
  4. It is always operated in an invisible window, which is only displayed when a special keystoke is made i.e something like ” ctrl + alt + f9 “.
  5. It will automatically start when the system is booted.
  6. It is to be noted that this application and other similar applications can only be installed on your computer with administrative privileges.

Softonic | Revealer Keylogger

Categories
PC Guides Security Web Guides

What Is A Firewall And How It Works

what is firewall and how it works, web application firewall

Firewalls are that extra layer of security which helps in restricting intruders. It can either be a software firewall or a hardware firewall. They have this unique ability of protecting entire network from the external environment. In this article you will understand what is a firewall and how exactly their implementation will protect the security and integrity of a given network.

what is firewall and how it works

 

Firewall – A Security System

Firewall is a network security system that can be implemented as a hardware device or a software program. A firewall once it is setup effectively filters out all the traffic that flows into a given network (or even a single computer) from some other network, like the Internet. This filtration is done based on the set of rules given to the Firewall.

It means that the resources present in a particular network can now be accessed only by the traffic that is allowed in the policy. And all the other traffic is denied access.

This security system has become more and more necessary with the increasing attacks of intruders, malicious codes and hackers. And if this network is the size of the internet, these unprotected computers become easy prey to hackers. So, one needs to understand the importance of a firewall and select that type of firewall which perfectly suits them. But that’s another lesson for another day.

 

Rule–Set (or) Firewall Policy:

The functioning of a Firewall is completely dependent on its rule-set. Based on this rule-set the firewall either accepts or denies external traffic. Actually a rule-set is that technical coding a Firewall Administrator does so as to tell the Firewall how he wants it to function. Basically, any firewall has a default setting to reject all traffic and to this policy few modifications are done so as to allow only a defined group of traffic.

The Firewall Administrator hence should have the perfect idea of what all the traffic he wants to allow into the network. If you are using Windows you can modify the firewall rule-set using the firewall setting in your control panel. But we recommend you do so only after understanding all the consequences.

 

Firewall Rules:

Each of the technical statements of the rule-set can address two types of traffic i.e. inbound and outbound. The rules governing these are the inbound rule and outbound rule.

Inbound Rule:

Inbound rules are those which are used by the Firewall to filter the incoming traffic. Generally, each computer when on the internet gets assigned with an IP address. So a computer on the network can be converted as a web server by defining an inbound rule and made to accept traffic. The aforementioned is one application and the other being the ability to hold video conferences.

Outbound Rule:

Outbound rule blocks or explicitly allows all the traffic that is originating from the host network. For example, you can block traffic from the network from going to a particular IP Address, or the time of day and so on using the firewall. For example, you can block the messages going out from your instant messenger using the outbound rule.

 

The Bottom Line:

For every computer that goes online, firewall is a must. Like mentioned Windows by default blocks all inbound traffic and allows all outbound traffic but all of that can be changed as per your requirements.

Also See: The Blooming Of Web Application Firewalls

Categories
PC Hacks Security

Encrypt Your Hard Drive Or Pendrive Without Using Truecrypt

Encrypt Your Hard Drive Or Pendrive Without Using Truecrypt

A few months ago, Truecrypt announced that it is closing all its services leaving all users who used the software rather than extended service with a method which can encrypt hard drive or pendrive.

Little or nothing is known about what happened to the software which is used with such a fame ceases trading from one day to another and if you visit their official site all you find is a warning message stating that the use of this software is unsecured.

Since the developer himself tells us that their application is not secure, so is time to look for an alternative to our data encryption. So here is the best alternative the”  VeraCrypt ” , it might be considered as the heir of the late Truecrypt.

This application is free and its source code is based on Truecrypt but has very great improvement especially in the area of security , in fact it is even more safer than the application on which it is based.

 

To get a clear idea about the encrypt power of this tool, we just compared the two encryption methods below :

 

Truecrypt : Uses an algorithm of 1,000 iterations to encrypt files and 2,000 for partitions.

 

VeraCrypt : Uses an algorithm of 327,661 iterations to encrypt files and more than 500,000 for partition.

 

Besides being really robust in terms of security, the use of the application is very simple. Just open the Veracrypt by double clicking on it and click on create volume option and follow the wizard.

 

Encrypt Your Hard Drive Or Pendrive Without Using Truecrypt

 

Indicate that once you have encrypted a device with VeraCrypt this may only be used on computers that contain this software installed , it will not be valid for any other encryption application available and of course will not be accessible in case of not having any tools.

For his tremendous security, simplicity and offered at no cost, we recommend VeraCrypt as an alternative to Truecrypt

CodePlex | VeraCrypt

Categories
PC Hacks Security Web Guides

How To Protect Yourself From Phishing And Internet Frauds

How To Protect Yourself From Phishing And Internet Frauds

One of the major concerns of any user accessing the Internet is the security of their data , both when it comes to documents stored in the cloud, and also the unauthorized access to email accounts. Particularly most of them are concerned about the security and integrity of their personal data.

We often hear or read news related to phishing , but really not everyone knows what this technique is , what consequences it can lead to and especially what to do in order to protect ourselves.

What is Phishing ?

Phishing is a method used by hackers around the world to impersonate any person or entity. In this method they try to earn your trust and thus ensure that you provide the data they need to make use of your bank cards and accounts.

It is important to understand that using this system, the scammer doesn’t directly steal your data, instead you will be the one who will deliver all data requested by the hacker, of course with absolute ignorance of the fact that you are being tricked.

How you may be victim of Phishing ?

One of the most common technique is to request your details via email; they pretend to be officers from some bank and thereby extract the required information from you. For instance, you may get an email which looks like it has been sent from an official source stating that your account will be canceled if you fail to submit the required information. This email will generally be full of colors and corporate logos everywhere in order to make you believe in their trickery. The arguments used may be different.

How To Protect Yourself From Phishing And Internet Frauds , How To Protect Yourself From Phishing And Internet Frauds

Another main methods in obtaining your data is by supplanting the official website of your bank and thereby insisting you to fill in your details and tries to earn your trust.

How can you protect yourselves from these scams?

The best method of protecting your bank details from falling into the wrong hands is to use common sense and especially distrust. No bank will ask your bank account details ( like account number and pin number ) in any case, there are no exceptions, they never ask in any form, whether by email, web browser or whatever. In case you have doubts about how to respond to a received email, then directly call to your bank’s help line center and get yours doubts cleared there and then, that too before providing any such details.

Our recommendations to prevent Internet fraud are :

=>If in doubt, ask your bank.

=>Remember that fraudulent emails you receive can be properly written without any spelling mistakes, with all the official logos but keep a note that no bank will request you for data by an email.

=>You may not only receive a fraudulent email from a bank, it is possible that we may receive them from other platforms such as Ebay or even Facebook .

=>Check your bank accounts regularly and if in doubt about any concept contact your bank.

=>Enter your details only on pages that are marked as safe . You can identify a secure web page if it starts with https instead of http.

=>Protect your computer with a good antivirus that offers anti-spam and anti-phishing filters.

=>Never access any website through the links that are provided by an email , it is always recommended to type the web address directly into the browser as you may be taken to a page that has been supplanted.

Finally, we recommend that if you have already been a victim of such a scam, do not hesitate to notify the police. If you hold the tips explained to you, you can browse and carry out online shopping without any problems , through public and secure pages.