Understanding the Rule of Holes
by Cate Eales
Appeared January 7, 2010 on castanet.net
I hope you all had a great vacation. I spent much of
mine making house calls to fix infected computers. Nope, not the H1N1 kind
of infection. I mean seriously embedded virus/trojan/malware/spyware
infections. The kind that take specialized skills, knowledge, tools ---
and imagination! --- to remove.
Bad things happen when your antivirus program
expires
Your best defence against unwanted software is to use a layered approach
to dealing with it. First, have an up-to-date antivirus + antispyware
program on your computer, and keep it up to date! A couple of the
computers I worked on had AVG 8.5 installed. Support for AVG 8.5 stopped
in early December. No more updates came in, but plenty of new malware did.
Pick ONE antivirus + antispyware program, make sure it’s getting daily
updates, make sure it’s doing daily scans, and make sure the real-time
protection is switched on. (It’s a good idea to get your
Microsoft
Updates, too.)
Second, you should supplement your always-on antivirus + antispyware
program with a different one that you run on-demand, once a week or so.
That won’t keep stuff out, but it should catch, and will probably clean,
anything that makes it through the first layer. The free versions of
SuperAntiSpyware and
Malwarebytes
are very good at this. Install one or the other, and be sure to check for
updates whenever you run it.
Know what you’re clicking!
Malware often gets on computers via “Drive-by Downloads.” You might visit
a website that tries to scare you by popping up a message about your
computer being in danger or already infected, and then tries to trick you
into downloading something to fix that problem. That file you download is
malware, and your computer is going to be bogged down with stuff before
you can say, “I wonder if that was a good idea.”
I spent one interesting afternoon cleaning a computer whose owner said
she’d clicked on a pop-up that let in a flood of malware “...because the
computer told me to.” Her virus protection was up to date, but was
immediately overwhelmed by malware when she clicked to allow it in.
When you search Google or Bing or Yahoo, you will get search results for
sites that are not safe. Don’t just click on things! If you don’t know
what’s safe and what’s not, use the Web of Trust add-on for Firefox and
Internet Explorer. Web of Trust rates websites and puts “traffic signal”
icons next to search results.
A green icon means the site is PROBABLY safe.
(click to enlarge graphic)
Yellow means the site has a poor reputation.
(click to enlarge graphic)
When you see a red icon, don’t even think about clicking
there.
(click to enlarge graphic)
If you click there anyway, you’ll get one more warning,
which you are free to ignore at your peril.
(click here to enlarge graphic)
Learn more about
Web of Trust here.
The Rule of Holes
You were wondering when I was going to get around to this, weren’t you?
The rule of holes states that when you’re in a hole, quit digging!
The customer who turned off his computer and contacted me as soon as he
realized he had picked up a trojan was happy. His computer was up and
running better than before in just a couple of hours. And while I was
there, I checked his other computer, updated the virus protection on it,
and ran a malware scan.
The gentleman who called me after watching an increasingly vicious set of
pop-ups cascade across his screen for three hours before picking up the
phone and describing each new one to me was not as lucky. He’ll be
deciding between reinstalling Windows XP, and buying a new computer.
If you know your computer is infected, or you even suspect your computer
might be infected and you don’t know how to fix it, turn off the computer
and call for help before you’re in over your head.
If you’re not sure whether your computer is adequately protected, that’s
the best time of all to call for help. Maybe we can keep you from ever
having to find your shovel!
Links
Microsoft Update
http://www.update.microsoft.com/
SuperAntiSpyware
http://www.superantispyware.com/
Malwarebytes
http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Wikipedia article: Drive-by Download
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-by_download
Web of Trust
http://www.mywot.com/
Computer Care Kelowna
http://computercarekelowna.com
Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archives
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--
Do you need help with your computer? I'm here to help you and your home or
business computer get along!
Cate Eales runs Computer Care Kelowna, a mobile service helping home users
and businesses get along with their computers. To arrange an appointment
phone her at 250-764-7043. Cate also welcomes your comments and
suggestions. Send email to
help@computercarekelowna.com.
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©
Cate Eales 2009 – All Rights Reserved
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