I am sure you have noticed an increase in malware around the Internet lately. A lot of worms are starting to appear each day, more and more, especially on Instant messaging platforms like Yahoo Messenger. More and more web sites contain vulnerabilities that hackers take advantage of. Still, there are protection measures. If you are already infected, you will learn to do a manual cleaning. If you are not to sure about this method, well you can always use anti virus solution that will do it automatically.
What is malware ? Types of malware
Malware, as the name suggests, is an application that bad intentions. It may not do very harmful actions on your computer, but it can be very well hidden. Many times their name can easily be mistaken with a virus. Viruses are also part of the malware category.
As I was saying, malware is a category of computer applications, or sometimes just a few lines of code, that can damage your computer. There are many types of malware: viruses, Trojans, Rootkit, Worms, Spyware.
Viruses
They are not static programs. They have to blend with other applications, then by using several methods they can access a victim’s computer: email, infected web sites and so on. Viruses always have a destructive behavior, sometimes they can even delete files.
Worms
Unlike viruses, worms are static applications. They do not have a destructive behavior, but most of the time they can eat your bandwidth and slow down your internet connection. They spread between computers using various methods: networks, unprotected computers, security breaches, email, and so son.
Trojans
They are the most dangerous and the most popular. They are dangerous because they can allow unauthorized access to your computer and they can facilitate data extraction.
Spyware
A spyware application is obviously still a malware, created to display messages with adverts on the screen of your computer, to collect personal information or to modify your computer settings. Usually a spyware application is attached to other programs and they install themselves on your computer without your consent. There are also some fake anti spyware applications that users install on their computer because they are mislead.
Now that you have understood what you are dealing with, I am sure that you asking yourself how to protect against such threats.
The first and the most important step is user education. Users should never open emails from people they don’t know. Then, you must not open links that were sent by unknown people. To protect yourself by fake links, there is the WOT extension that can be used with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome.
There are a lot of dangers on the Internet. You can be the victim of an XSS or of a redirect to a dangerous web site. Also, some sites are vulnerable, and with the help of a dangerous iframe a trojan download can be installed on the victim’s computer. To protect against all these dangers you can use the NoScript extension that makes browsing the web more safer. If you do not know what to block you better not use it. The extension works only on Mozila, Kmeleon, Flock and Seamonkey.
To make sure that you are not vulnerable to malware attacks you can use the Secunia PSI application and with it’s help to check the versions of your installed applications. Also, don’t use Adobe Reader, you can use the Xchange or Sumatra applications instead. Regarding updates, it is not recommended to have the Automatic updates setting turned on because some updates can harm your computer. It’s best to activate the ” Let me chose whether to download and install updates” option.
One of the most important steps is to install an anti virus solution and keep it up to date.We are not going to star a debate about which anti virus software is better. You can do a search online to find reviews and user opinions.
Stay safe!
