Security Software

Webmaster Blog

Our webmaster blogs on Defensive Computing at Computerworld.com. Here are some security software related posts:

A formula approach to generating passwords December 17, 2010. The recent infiltration of computers at the Gawker Media Network illustrates how important it is to not re-use passwords. A formula is one way to create multiple unique passwords without having to remember them all.

Kicking the tires on the Avira AntiVir Rescue CD December 4, 2010. Avira's AntiVir is available as a free bootable rescue CD. I took it for a spin on an infected Windows computer.

October 2009 General Meeting

The October 2009 General Meeting featured Michael Horowitz speaking about Secure Wi-Fi Networking, both at home and when traveling. Below are some relevant articles.

Windows and Online Banking: A Dangerous Mix October 19, 2009

The Best Security for Wireless Networks (home networks)

Being Secure on Public Wi-Fi: VPN, Firewalls, File Sharing

Wi-Fi security: It's a good time to be a bad guy

Introduction to Firewalls

ShieldsUP! at GRC.com

Witopia offers a consumer VPN service

inSSIDer from MetaGeek finds local Wi-Fi networks

Make Firefox flag secure web pages as green

February 2009 General Meeting

At our February 2009 General Meeting a number of NYPC members discussed security software. Here is part of what they said and recommended.

Michael Horowitz recommended Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware* a recommendation that Laura Balsam seconded and Mary Ginsburg thirded. The free version of the software scans on demand and removes malware. The paid version runs all the time in the background and prevents infection. Everyone told of infected computers that other software could not clean up but where Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware did the job.

Laura recommended the ZoneAlarm security suite.

Michael demonstrated the tricks used by malicious software that resides on an infected USB flash drive to fool someone into running the software. There's good news though, he also described a simple zap to the registry that protects your computer by disabling all autorun.inf files. For more see The best way to disable Autorun for protection from infected USB flash drives.*

He suggested zapping the registry using the following. Save this to a .reg file and double-click on it. This is three lines, it may wrap in your web browser, but needs to be a plain text file as three lines.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"

Our thanks to Patrick McEvoy who recorded the meeting. Here is a 9 minute segment where Michael Horowitz describes how to configure autorun against viruses.

Michael also suggested OpenDNS. For more see OpenDNS prevents the Conficker worm from phoning home*.

Michael suggested running a full scan with free software that Windows users already have on their machine, the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. For more see What you dont know about the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool*.

As for antivirus software, many people prefer AVG, but Michael suggested AntiVir. Shortly after the meeting he blogged that People keep saying good things about Avira's AntiVir. Avira's Antivir is available at www.free-av.com.