|
|
|
Home::Malware
Are You Sure You Are Out Of Malware?
Author : Hamid Reza Soroush Zand
There are symptoms that can help us greatly cure our PCs before
it's too late. By being too late I mean the time you learn to be
infected and unfortunately you may have lost something including
but not limited to, your credit card numbers revealed to
strangers, your email password stolen, your stable operating
system deformed, etc.
Nowadays especially Windows XP users prefer to use the built in
hibernate feature of their Windows and less and less they
restart their PCs everyday.
You might know that whenever a Trojan, malware, adware, virus
and other newly created online or offline threats enter and
resides in your computer, a restarting of your machine gives
these new guests a golden opportunity, some of them multiply,
others simply hide inside other files like photos or txt files
and others actively gain more power by being able to access some
system resources they like.
So, first note, whenever you visit a suspicious website, or
download something especially a file from unknown sources like
p2p programs or from unverified Urls, scan the files downloaded
and then scan your computer before hibernating or turning off.
If after restarting your computer or coming out of hibernation
you are encountered by an error message that you didn't see
before downloading the specified file, this might, be a sign of
an intruder.
Read the error message exactly, if it asks you go online and
visit a website, it strongly can be an adware or spyware
commanding your internet connections to allow it use your online
resources, or complete downloading some other malwares onto your
computer.
In some cases if you see some errors that are related to your
VGA status, for example Windows warns that your color settings
are too low or something like that, it's better to scan your PC
with your several updated anti-virus and anti-spyware programs
and if the case persists, just uninstall your VGA software and
reinstall.
Make sure that whenever being online, your pop up blocker is
active, cause many adwares and spywares are downloaded through
pop up windows. Also pay very attention to messages asking you
turn off your firewall, it's a proven trick that some sites
exporting malwares, usually offer free softwares and exciting
programs and when you begin downloading an error message appears
on your screen that in order to download or continue downloading
of this software, please turn off your firewall, Never download
such things and Never turn off your firewalls in such cases.
Spam emails too are among the new evolved methods of sending
malware to people through unrealistic messages, for example you
receive emails that your bank account is in danger and your bank
asks you change your account password.
In such cases, if you use mail clients like Outlook, just right
click on the email message and read about the senders real email
address, in fact you very well know what email address belongs
to your bank. These emails usually come from free online email
addresses.
Don't forget to make a phone call to you bank and inspect if
such action is needed or not.
Nowadays, quite unlike the past some keyloggers and malwares do
not need to reside inside an attached email message, instead
they hide inside html and picture emails and load onto your
computer through mere reading, it's a trusted word that when you
receive an email from an unknown source with a strange title
like: I Love you or You have won the jackpot, delete it unread.
In some cases when you scan your computer and your anti-spyware
programs find some malwares, your scanner wants you to restart
your PC, so that the cleaning take effect, if this is true about
you, turn off and rescan after restarting to see if the Trojan
has been successfully cleaned.
The two major internet browsers Internet Explorer and Mozilla
Firefox are both familiar names to millions of online browsers
and there is not yet any exact evidence as to which one is safer
against online threats but you can test them, download and use
them updated and then browse with each one for a while and after
using each one, just scan your PC, after a short while you will
learn that which one is right for you.
But a note must be mentioned here, neither of these two browsers
can make you immune from online threats if used by themselves,
so be equipped with several anti-virus and anti-spyware
programs, scan everyday and after suspicious behaviors.
Related articles
|
|
|
