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Home::Malware
Protection from PC Intruders
Author : James Hayes
Years have passed since the age of innocence in the computing
world. Nowadays, there exists an increasing variety of malicious
software programs as well as e-mail messages carrying them. Most
of these programs can either be classified as viruses, worms,
spyware and trojans. Amazingly, one of the victims of such
programs was Ed Gibson, Head of Security for Microsoft UK, whose
PC was infected by a dialer and started transmitting such
programs to other unsuspecting victims.
Before we start, however, here are some quick definitions:
Worms, Viruses: Malicious executable code that can copy itself
from one PC to another. Most of them don't perform any other
operations apart from simply copying themselves. They can,
however, multiply like that very quickly and clog a system. The
famous Internet Worm actually brought the whole Internet on it's
knees, back in 1988.
Trojans: Seemingly harmless programs but not really. They can be
disguised as utilities, or as a system process but actually
contain executable code intended for other tasks. A trojan may
contain a virus, or a backdoor through which an intruder can
have complete access to your PC.
Spyware, adware: Programs that spy on your PC and record and
transmit data such as the sites you usually go to, the fields in
on-line forms you use (such as your e-mail accounts, your credit
card numbers and generally everything you enter in a web form).
They are usually VERY poorly written programs and as such, will
often slow down your PC or corrupt your software. (Yes, if they
were really good written, they would actually go by unnoticed.
Lucky for us, most talented programmers have jobs writing real
software rather than parasites...)
Dialers: Programs that use your modem to dial numbers without
you being aware of them. With the use of broadband connections,
they tend to become a thing of the past. And we'll not deal with
them in this article.
It is worth mentioning that in recent years, a significant
increase in the number of adware and spyware programs has been
noticed, with a subsequent reduction in the number of new
viruses being created. This can be explained as follows: While
viruses can be a serious threat and can greatly and irreversibly
harm your system, adware and spyware programs can actually
gather very important personal information such as your credit
card number and deliver that information to whoever was
responsible for the attack, which most of the times is the
creator of the program. An effective system security tool should
not just locate these malicious files on your PC but should also
be able to permanently erase them.
Most anti-virus programs can successfuly locate, identify and
remove viruses but things are not as easy when it comes to
spyware and adware. There is no product in the market that can
eliminate 100% of spyware. It is therefore recommended that you
install and periodically run at least two anti-spyware programs.
It would be better if at least one of your chosen anti-spyware
programs offers some kind of real-time protection. This means
that a component of the anti-spyware programs stays resident on
your computer memory and monitors traffic between your PC and
the Internet. If a web page tries to send malicious code to you,
or if an executable file tries to install that code, the
anti-spyware resident component will detect it and block it. You
can then, periodically run another anti-spyware program to scan
your disk, in case something was missed by the first program (as
we've said, no program currently detects and removes 100% of
spyware).
Finally, it is crucial to frequently update your anti-spyware
program or programs. New spyware programs are created all the
time and it might be often that you find your PC infected with
the latest spyware that your anti-spyware program failed to
detect before you updated it. So don't forget to update your
anti-spyware about once a month to be as safe as possible!
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