Internet Security Blog

Scan Windows Registry, Processes, Services to Remove Malware

Silki — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:14:09 +0000

Most of today’s Security Software Applications work on the principle of malware signature identification. They depend on the identification of a malware, developing its counter measure, inclusion of its definition in the database, subsequent download of these definitions by the end user and then only the security is provided to the ultimate user.

However, another approach to the malware detection in your computer is to look for the suscpicious processes, services and registry entries and remove them.

There are many tools available, which can detect suscpisious behavious and alert you. Now it is upto you to dig more about suspicious processes and take action.

FreeFixer – A Freeware Malware Catcher

FreeFixer is a general purpose removal tool which will help you to delete potentially unwanted software, such as adware, spyware, trojans, viruses and rootkits. FreeFixer works by scanning a large number of locations where unwanted software has a known record of appearing or leaving traces. The scan locations include the programs that run on your computer, the programs that starts when you reboot your computer, your browser’s plug-ins, your home page setting, etc.

FreeFixer does not know which the bad files and settings are, so the scan result will contain items you want to keep and perhaps some that you want to remove. It’s up to you to decide. Please be careful! If you delete a legitimate file you may damage your computer. To assist you when determining if anything should be removed you can find more information at FreeFixer’s web site for each item in the scan result.

[Download FreeFixer]

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Another Reason Why Firefox is the Safest Internet Web Browser

Silki — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:47:02 +0000

Firefox is the default Internet web browser for the millions of “informed netizens”, who care for their security and privacy. I have been using Firefox as my primary browser for the last three years ever since I started blogging. And apart from its security and safety feature in this safe internet browser, what I like most is its open source nature, which allows hundreds and thousands of independent developers to work over it and develop third party plugins, extensions and addons to customize the web browser to all individual needs.

Firefox Now Informs You About Unsecured Software and Applications

Firefox has been able to update itself by detecting the availability of the latest version. But now the deal has become even sweeter. With the latest versions of Firefox, it now informs you about the unsecured versions of various other software components and applications, which you might have on your computer.

In this post on Mozilla Blog, Johnathan Nightingale writes about how Mozilla is able to detect and warn the users if their version of the popular Adobe Flash Player plugin is out of date. You may already be aware that old versions of adobe flash player can cause crashes and other stability problems, and can also be a significant security risk.

But the best part is that many people, estimated to be about 1 million in the first week itself, were successfully pursuaded to upgrade their version of flash to the latest version and mitigate the potential security threat

Three Cheers for Firefox, the safest Internet Web Browser.

If you are still using Internet Explorer, we recommend you switching to Firefox for safety and Goocle Chrome for speed.

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Crack, Recover or Remove Lost or Forgotten Password in Excel

Silki — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:02:01 +0000

Passwords are your key to security. We have often advised against the use of weak passwords and not to repeat them at different websites and applications. But using strong passwords has its own inconveniences and hassles.

There are many instances when you may need to crack or recover a lost or forgotten passwords. For instance, an employee might have just left your company and that important client spreadsheet created by him last Friday had a password only known to him. Or you yourself had a locked an important Excel file with a strong password and you are not remembering it just because it is already six months back. Orone of your family members has put a not-so-easy password on your important file.

Or may be, you just want to break the Excel password of a colleague’s file.

We just found a nice tool to crack or recover passwords from Microsoft Excel Files with ease.Petri IT Knowledgebase Team has come out with an Excel Password recovery, which does the job of cracking Excel Passwords in a few clicks.

They have a useful step-by-step guide to help you out for recovering excel passwords. This guide outlines how to use a simple Excel password recovery application to crack lost or forgotten passwords, allowing you to unlock password-encrypted Microsoft Excel documents quickly as possible.

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Speedup Firefox and Surf Web Faster-Clean SQLite Database

Silki — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:28:09 +0000

Firefox is my favorite browser. Not because it is best in terms of security aspects, or user features or speed of browsing, but because of its open source nature, which allows hundreds of developers to build modules and addons, which seamless integrate with it to provide you a customized web surfing experience.

Mozilla Links has recently published a post describing a neat way to speedup firefox and surf web faster. It is by defragging its SQLite database.

If you are not aware, SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small (~225 KB) C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain.

How SQLite Databases Affect Firefox Speed

Since Firefox 3.0, bookmarks, history and most storage is kept in SQLite databases. Also, the default history time span was raised from 9 to 90 days as it became more discoverable and useful thanks to the awesome bar, so depending on your browsing habits it could represent some pretty large databases.

As any other database, SQLite databases become fragmented over time and empty spaces appear all around. But, since there are no managing processes checking and optimizing the database, these factors eventually result in a performance hit. So, a good way to improve startup and some other bookmarks and history related tasks is to defragment and trim unused space from these databases.

How to Optimize and Defrag SQLite Database to Improve Firefox Speed

Follow these simple steps.

Open the Error Console: Tools menu/Error Console

In the Code text box paste this (it’s a single line):

Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

Press Evaluate. All the UI will freeze for a few seconds while databases are VACUUMed

[Via]

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[Private Internet Browsing] Beware – Websites Can Steal Your Browser History

Silki — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:46:30 +0000

With the ever increasing number and ways of Internet threats, the concerns about Private Internet browsing also increasing with each passing days. The data about your browsing habits, what you like and what you not, which sites you often visit; all these stuff is becoming more valuable both for fraudsters as well as advertisers, who understand the importance of targeted advertising.

One of the most common pool of information about your browsing habits is your browser itself. For years, your browser history has been used by the scripts and malware developers to steal that important information about you. And it is surprising to note despite the presence of this weakness for years, most of the browsers have not yet been able to come out with a definite solution for this privacy issue.

There are some easy scripts, which can get this data from your browser in seconds. I just came across two such scripts.

StartPanic

One is available at SartPanic. StarPanic.com is as website created for raising awareness about the private Internet Browsing. On the home page, you will find a button “Lets Start”.

Click on that button, and within a few seconds, you will find a list of sites, which you have recently visited. The exact code of the script used is not revealed by the website, but it seems that they are using some Javascript to determine this private information.

LinuxBox

Yet another script is available at LinuxBox website. They are also giving the details of the mechanism in which they gather the private date from your web browser.

A lesser known function in Javascript is currentStyle, which returns the CSS properties for an element in the document. Most web browser keep a record of visited URLs, so by setting different styles for a and a:visited, we can programatically determine if a link displayed in the document has previously been visited. Or, to put things more simply: your browser shows visited links in a different colour. Javascript can be used to spot that change in colour, hence tell if you’ve visited a particular site or not.

It seems that the NoScript Firfox Addon can help you to get rid of such browser weaknesses. NoScript Firefox Addon is surely one of the robust security and privacy tool for your Firefox Browser. But it takes the funpart out of the browsing and makes Internet a dull space. And also, there is no such alternative available, if you are using some other browser.

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UltraVPN – Free VPN Service for Blocked Sites

Silki — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:23:39 +0000

There are many forms of Internet censorship. Many a times, a corporate environment, a schools administrations or University IT department blocks the use of certain websites to enable them to restrict the use of Internet. Many a times the IT department blocks the use of chat clients like MSN and Yahoo thinking that they are a big time wasters and affect the productivity of their employees.

Besides that, there are many users, which are overly concerned about their privacy while using Internet and want to hide as many details as possible including their IP and other details.

If you are also working in such an environment and want to access blocked websites, or you want to hide your IP while browsing over Internet, then you may consider using Virtual Private Network, or VPN services. There are lots of VPN services available on Internet using different mode of operations. Some of them are free, while others are paid solution.

UltraVPN is one such Free VPN Service.

What is UltraVPN

UltraVPN is a client/server SSL VPN solution based on OpenVPN. It works by encrypting and anonymizing your network connection. You have to register first on their website and then you can download the free VPN client absolutely free. It simply sits on your system tray. Whenever you want your browsing session to be secured and encrypted, you can just right click it and choose “connect” to use this free VPN service.

Your browsing data passes through the secured servers of UltraVPN, and your privacy is protected.

Is UltraVPN Secure

There are always concerns about the sharing your private browsing data with a third party. However, UltraVPN is an open source applications, which ensures that you can be sure about the source code of the application. However, you have to generate and keep faith in them about the security of your private data, when using this useful free VPN service.

There is yet another concern about the speed of your browsing, because now there is another layer between you and your target webpage. It depends on user to user, and you are advised to keep this factor in mind while opting to use it.

[Download UltraVPN]

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How to Logout from Firefox Master Password After Timeout

Silki — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:41:21 +0000

Basics of Password Security

In this era of Web 2.0, there are tens and sometimes hundreds of websites and forums, where you have to create an account and have a username and password and you want them to be secure also. Two of the basic premises of password security are …

Always use strong passwords: which are 8-14 characters long, do not contain any dictionary word, do not contain any of your personal information like name date of birth etc., are a mix of alphabets, numbers and special characters and have a blend of small and capital letters.

Do not repeat same password at a number of sites.

With so many expectations, it is next to impossible for an average computer user to remember all these passwords without the use of a password manager tool. There are lots of them available, some paid and other on free basis. But it has been observed them because of several reasons; sometime due to lack of knowledge about their availability, sometimes due to complexities of their operations and sometimes due to fear of sharing their passwords with a third party

However there is also another option.

Most of the popular Internet browsers today have password remembering feature. This makes our lives convenient and many people tend to use this facility. But it has an inherent weakness.

Take the case of Firefox.

Firefox has a decent password remembering facility. All passwords are stored within Firefox files. But they can easily be seen by anybody using your computer in your absence with a few clicks. To prevent this, Firefox has a facility called Master Password. Master Password allows you to specify a Master Password, which is needed when you want to see the passwords stored within your browser.

Master Password also has the facility to automatically logoff through its timeout feature, which disallows access to passwords after a default value of 300 seconds / 5 minutes. That is, if your browser is inactive for a period of 5 minutes, your firefox assumes that you are away from your computer and logs you out of the master password. You have to login again to use your stored passwords.

But what about the case when you are just leaving your computer for a couple of minutes. Is a period of two minutes is not enough for your spying colleague to come at your desk, click a few times and get access to your stored passwords. I do not find there any option, which allows you to logout of your master password, whenever you want.

How to Logout from Firefox Master Password After Timeout

That’s where the role of a useful Firefox Security Addon come into play. Firefox Master Password Timeout locks the master security device after a predefined period of inactivity to prevent unauthorized use of saved passwords. You can easily change the default value from 300 seconds to anything you want.

This important firefox security addon also allows you to logout from master password with your right click contextual menu.

Caution: There are user complaints that it wipes out all your saved passwords on install and uninstall. Please take it into consideration before downloading, installing and using Master Password Timeout Firefox Extension. The extension is available for Firefox 3.5 also although the firefox website says that it has not been updated after June 14, 2008.

[Download Master Password Timeout]

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Test Computer for Installed KeyLoggers

Silki — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:48:40 +0000

Apart from Phishing, Keyloggers are one of the key factors contributing to the rise of cases of Identity theft in recent times. Keyloggers are not the old hardware types anymore, which could easily be spotted by a careful visual inspection of your computer wires and cables.

Today’s keyloggers are smart. They have the capabilities to hide themselves deep into your software applications and operate from there. And they are easy to install and control for a remote person, thanks to some careless attitude of many of the victims.

How to check, if your computer already has a Keylogging Software installed?

Many of the Security Software suites available today are able to detect most of the common keylogging software. As soon as some keylooger is attempted to be installed on your system, your security suite warns you about that and you can take appropriate action.

But, are you sure that your security software is capable of identifying keylogging activities? There is a simple test software available from Zemana, which lets you simulate a keylogger on your computer. You can download it absolutely free and run it on your computer. If your security software is able to detect it, then you may be confident about the effectiveness of that against keyloggers, otherwise it is time to have a second look at your choice of security software.

My Testing of Zemana

I have been using Norton 360 on my Laptop and it was not able to intercept this keylogging simulator software. But at the same time, I am also using KeyScrambler, which encrypts the data you enter through your keyboard. I was happy to note that all the text, which Zemana Keylogging Simulator could cpature was the encrypted text and not the actual keystrokes.

Thus, KeyScrambler was actually performing its job quite effectively and I was protected against such Keylogging activities.

Nice tool, and I recommend you to give it a try to test, if any keylogger is installed onto your system. You never know, when huge surprise start staring on your face.

[Download Zemana Keylogging Simulator Test]

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WinPatrol – Useful Tool to Manage Windows Security Options

Silki — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 08:07:54 +0000

Windows Security is a topic which is talked by many but understood by few. There are so many security options and tweaks that it is sometimes very difficult for an average user to understand them fully and use them appropriately in best manner.

Do not think that if you have installed latest Antivirus, Antispyware and latest firewall, then your computer is secured. Computer Security is lot more than that.

WinPatrol is one such utility, which try to make this easier for you. It is a free software, which continuously monitors your computer for any modifications to the critical areas and alerts you as soon as something like that is attempted.

For instance, if a malware tries to add anything to your Registry’s Startup locations you will be immediately intimated. Similarly is a browser plug0in is installed without your knowledge or any of the file type associates are attempted to be changed, or a schedules task is created, any modifications are attempted to change your hosts file or even a new ActiveX control is installed, you will be prompted about these and you can take appropriate action depending upon whether you have a valid reason for such an action.

If you are not able to appreciate the usefulness of this tiny utility, understand this it in this manner. If some stranger knock you on the door of your house, you servant will ask him many questions and intimate you before letting him enter the house. WinPatrol does the same thing. It inquires the strangers, who want to gain access your computer, and let you know about the intentions of the stranger to its master, that is you. Now it is upto you to decipher that information correctly and take an appropriate decision.

Features of This Useful Tool to Manage Windows Security Options

There are a lot of options available. Some of them are…

Schedule your Startup Programs: You can schedule your startup programs selectively to start after say 15 minutes or half an hour. This way you can just initiate your favorite programs and security software in the beginning and start your work immediately, without waiting endlessly to load all your start up programs.

Keep track of risks: WinPatrol also keeps track of when a program, service, Registry entry, or hidden file was first detected on your machine

Better than Most Security Software: Since all security software and antivirus depend upon signature identifications and updation of their signature files, there may be some delay when your antivirus is updated. By this time the malware can infect you. But WinPatrol works in real time and thus provide your better security in some cases.

There are lots of other features which you will love including these.

Increase Your Speed & System Performance
Detect & Neutralize Spyware. Detect & Neutralize ADware
Detect & Neutralize Viral infections. Detect & Neutralize Unwanted IE Add-Ons
Detect & Restore File Type Changes Automatically Filter Unwanted Cookies
Avoid Start Page Hijacking. Detect HOSTS file changes
Kill Multiple Tasks that replicate each other, in a single step
Stop programs that repeatedly add themselves to your Startup List
Delete and Remove the most Stubborn Infections

Download WinPatrol

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Identity Finder – Free Protection Against Identity Theft

Silki — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:23:08 +0000

Protection against the cases of identity theft is an issue, which is gaining huge importance in this Internet era. With the ever increasing number of cases of identity theft and newer methods being devised, this issue becomes extremely important.

And remember, Identity theft is something, which is not always online. The data stored within your PC is also extremely vulnerable.

The Common Causes of Identity Theft

The most common causes of identity theft cases is the use of weak passwords. Repeat use of the same passwords on different websites, indiscriminate clicking on every other URL you find in your email or falling prey to phishing attempts are some of the other common causes of identity theft. If you are careful enough in your online behavior, you can easily protect yourself against most of the identity theft attempts.

But even if you are careful enough, there are always chances that your computer stores some important information about your personality, which can easily be used against you. You may have stored that in some files, or shared through emails or chats, or hidden in browser cookies, browser password managers or somewhere else. There are virtually hundreds of such places, where you might have stored your personal data, and now have forgotten.

This data may include…

Social Security Numbers
Individual taxpayer numbers
Credit and debit card information
Bank account information
Passwords/pins
Dates of Birth
National Insurance Numbers (United Kingdom)
National Health Service Number (United Kingdom)
Tax File Numbers (Australia)
Social Insurance Numbers (Canada)

How to Find Such Data, which is extremely vulnerable for Identity Theft?

It might be extremely difficult to find such data. You cannot imagine to find that manually and you need specialized tools to search such data which is extremely vulnerable to your identity. Remember, it may be difficult for you, but hackers and malware developers know exactly where to search and how to search, if they want to launch an identity theft against you.

Thankfully, there is a useful utility just for the case.

Identity Finder is an application, which can search all hidden locations of your computer, which are not easily accessible to average computer user, and find all such vulnerable data. It is capable of searching following locations.

Home and office files or any other file type
Compressed files
E-mails and message attachments
Contacts and calendar entries
Databases (SQL, Oracle, DB2, etc.)
Internet and intranet Websites
Web browser hidden storage areas such as auto-complete fields (i.e., passwords and form data)
Web pages and cookies
Instant messenger logs
Windows registry
and much more

Once it finds something, it allows you to quickly encrypt and secure your personal data and keeps you protected from any such identity theft attempt.

Identity Finder is a free application for download. But the free version has only limited features. If you want to use all the features of Identity Finder, then you will have to buy its paid versions.

Download Identity Finder

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