“Advice
is judged by results,
not by intentions.”
Cicero
“Replace the fear by knowledge”
Cesar Millan
Computers and the Internet are already
an inseparable part of our professional and private life. Moreover,
our prosperity depends on their proper operation to a great extent.
Therefore the fear of everything threatening the reliable work of
computers is understandable. To replace the fear by knowledge is the
intention of this brief article. It discusses, in a concise form and
in general, what puts computers at risk, and what measures should be
taken for their protection. The question of the optimisation of
computers as a procedure towards their optimal performance is
considered, too.
Today the threats arise from both the
connectivity of computers to networks and people's careless behaviour
and ignorance regarding the techniques used for attacks with
malware, short for malicious software. According to our reliable
assistant- the Wikipedia “Malware
includes computer
viruses, worms,
trojan
horses, spyware,
adware, most
rootkits, and
other malicious programs”.1
While all
these forms of malware differ in the type of damage they cause (from
slowing computer down to theft of bank account data), they have
something in common- the routes of infection. All of these malicious
programs get on a computer through deception of the user or through
software vulnerabilities. A computer virus is usually embedded inside
a file of almost all possible formats and is sent as an attachment to
your email under the disguise of useful information or security tool.
Being unwary and curious, you download the file with the virus
payload, and the virus attaches itself to a file (not necessarily an
“exe” file in Windows machines; it can be a “doc”, “xls”
or other file) or boot sectors on your computer and begins its
malicious work. In addition to installing antivirus programs, you
should adopt some security practices. The first one is: be sure to
open only attachments you trust, and be wary of data received from
untrusted sources. In fact, viruses are third-party programs allowed
to be run on your computer thanks to the privileges/permissions you
have as an user. Because of the way permissions work in Linux
systems, it is more difficult for a virus to wreak havoc in such
computers. Hence, it would be advantageous for keeping your
computer safe from viruses to use Linux, some of its distributions
being as user-friendly as the operating systems of Microsoft are, for
example Ubuntu
Linux. Like viruses spyware exploits user's carelessness and/or
software vulnerabilities, mostly Internet Explorer and Windows
security holes. Spyware, initially meant for espionage purposes, has
taken on its present sense as malicious software for stealing
personal information including user logins and bank or credit account
information, changing computer settings, installing additional
software or redirecting Web browsers , misleading users to
advertisement websites. Spyware is installed on your computer
surreptitiously usually by masquerading as security software.
Spyware can be bundled with another useful and desirable software you
would gladly download. It is executed automatically when the
operating system boots without your knowledge. Spyware is hidden and
accomplishes its malicious work without you even suspecting its
harmful presence and behaviour. Besides installing anti-spyware
programs (usually combined with antivirus software to form
anti-malware software), there are some security approaches you should
assume to keep your computer safe from spyware. Use a web browser
other than Internet Explorer, such as Opera, Google Chrome, or
Mozilla Firefox. Download programs only from reputable sources. Be
aware of the common spyware programs and threatening websites, such
as CoolWebSearch
or Movieland
and
Coolwebsearch.com
or
Popcorn.net,
respectively . Be informed on the 'news' in the computer security
field by visiting Wikipedia and websites like StopBadware
and Shadowserver
Foundation , which give actual information on security threats
and attacker's techniques, eg tricking users by social engineering.
Inspect your computer periodically by disconnecting it from the
internet and by means of credible anti-spyware/antivirus software.
Be sure to use reliable anti-malware software, which should be updated every day for new
'signatures', components known as malicious code, and new security
techniques. There are reliable anti-malware programs like
Microsoft
Security Essentials or Malwarebytes
Anti-Malware you can use to keep your computer safe. Have your
computer be scanned periodically online if you run anti-malware
applications. This online scanning is necessary because the first
thing that malicious software does is to eliminate any existing
anti-malware software. Therefore the only way to know of an attack is
by using an online scanning resource that is not installed on the
infected computer. You can use the free online services of Panda
Software's AcriveScan
or Kaspersky's Free
Virus Scan. Both require that the scan is preformed using
Internet Explorer. So you can take advantage of IE for scanning
purposes. Following these advices should lead to the intended
results- keeping your computer safe. Safety in the sense of
protection from malicious software is one of the aspect of this
article. The other aspect is keeping computers optimised.
The optimisation or
achieving optimum computer performance requires bloatware
removal as a first step.
Bloatware is the inclusion in a software program of unnecessary
features that are not used by end users, for example marketing or
e-commerce features. Therefore this type of bloatware software uses
more computer resources than necessary, while offering little or no
benefit to its users. The result of the extremely large amount of
features is summarized by Niklaus
Wirth in his statement that “software
speed is decreasing more quickly than hardware speed is increasing”2.
To get rid of the bloatware, you can use Ccleaner.
This is reliable software which will clean your computer from the
unnecessary “rubbish”. The second step you should take towards
the optimum performance of your computer consists in a series of maintenance
procedures, such as cleaning up your startup programs, cleaning up
services that aren't needed, running a General Maintenance Utility
Program, disabling some features you don't need, etc, for which
perhaps you have to be assisted by a computer specialist.3
The computer professional may recommend you to implement some more
complicated security controls like Firewall for example.4
In replacing the fear by
the above knowledge, the given advices will be judged by the achieved
result which is certainly keeping your computer optimised and safe.
May 29th,
2012
Marlena Yurukova, M.S.
2
Software Blot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bloat)
