Viruses become a common thing in the Internet. But it should not be a common thing in your computer. Computer viruses behave the same as health viruses.

They start small, propagate, and invade the body causing it to cripple and unable to perform well.

Microsoft is constantly updating its operating system software to make it virus free. But even computer virus evolves.

It is keeping up with the times and the numerous security updates. It keeps on looking for holes where it can break into.

PC Virus threats are classified into different levels. These levels are standard and are followed by the major anti-virus software manufacturer.

To understand what the different virus levels are, read on:

1. Critical Level

Critical level means the worm or the virus has the ability to create damage worldwide. It can easily spread globally and cannot be contained in an instant. This also means that the virus is widespread and that it can target everyone, including common home computer users. Malware and spyware are good examples of these.

2. Severe Level

A virus alert is tagged severe if the worm can target both patched and unpatched computer systems. It is also worldwide in nature, and has the potential to spread rampantly and swiftly, but has not done so just yet.

3. Elevated Level

This level alert is given out when a worm or a virus has the ability to spread globally and attack both patch and unpatched systems. But the virus cannot penetrate or propagate by itself. User intervention is usually needed.

4. Low Level

With a low alert level, there is no direct danger to systems that were successfully patched. The virus, malware, or spyware under this alert are in a controlled level and there are new activity reported.

These are the four personal computer virus threat levels. Your anti-virus software can use any one of these alert levels when they post new updates about recently discovered viruses and spyware.

So the next time you inspect the virus bulletin from your mail or from the anti-virus website itself, try to check out the PC virus level first. That alone will give you a faint idea as to how worse the situation can be.

But the bottom line is that viruses, whatever their alert level maybe should be given absolute attention. Do not take viruses for granted. Remember that a single one of them penetrating your computer system will cause it to crash.

There are times when we type things on our computer and save them on our computers yet we don’t wish people to read whatever it is we have written and saved. For those who don’t know how to protect what they have written from people who might have access to their computers other than themselves, using a password protected system to keep your documents from being accessed by other people is one thing that should be learned.

Create a Password For Your PC

One of the easiest ways for you to protect your documents from other people who might use your computer from time to time would be to create a password for your User profile. Your User profile can be locked so that only you can access it and other people can use the PC from another profile that can be for common use. To password protect your User profile:

1. You should first click on start then on settings and finally on Control Panel.
2. From control Panel, access the User Accounts and click on your User account.
3. Follow the steps for creating a password for your user account and apply it.

Create a Password for Your Word Documents

After you create a certain document you want to keep away the eyes of people you don’t want to read it, you can always password protect it after you write it. This kind of a move password protects individual documents that you feel should be hidden from everyone else without having to create a separate user profile on your computer. Here are the steps you can use to do this:

1. You first choose options from the tools menu.
2. You then click on the security tab on the pop-up and you type in the password that  is needed to open the document in the box provided for.
3. You will then click on OK after typing in your password and you will need to re-verify this password after you click OK.
4. You can then safely save the document and be secure that no one can read it without the password. You can only open this particular document after you provide the password.

Protecting your documents with the use of either a user profile password or a specific document password will help ensure that whatever you wish to keep to yourself will remain safely away from people you don’t want seeing your documents and what they contain.

Technology is an amazing thing. Computers these days can do everything. With so many new bells and whistles, computers and the Internet have become hunting grounds for child predators. They attempt to reach your child through your computer and they can use webcams to do it.

It’s as if The Jetsons are alive and living in the 21st century. You can actually talk to someone through your computer and see them face to face. Using webcams, video equipment and microphones, kids can project their image across cyberspace.

It’s new technology so kids are curious and excited. YouTube is a site devoted to video networking. Kids can upload videos of themselves doing everything from skateboarding to fixing their favorite milkshake. Once these videos are uploaded, people anywhere can see them.

Webcams aren’t all bad are they?

Webcams are useful for many reasons. First, families can stay in touch. This is especially nice for service men and women to see their families or grandparents to keep in touch with their grandkids who live miles away. A webcam lets you see the person in real time.

Secondly, webcams can be used for instructional videos, school projects and classes that are interactive. It’s like being there without being there.

What are the drawbacks?

With each new technological development there comes someone who wants to exploit it for its nefarious uses. Child predators use webcams to satisfy their sexual urges.

Getting to your child with messages in chat rooms is dangerous enough, but with a webcam they can actually see them.  It is as scary as it sounds.

If you’ve ever seen someone use a webcam online, they can post their webcam address and perform real time video sessions.

Some people do it on their social site pages for friends, but the feed can be picked up by others and broadcast all over the world. Online predators can tap into these feeds and contact your child.

The relationship begins innocently. They talk to your child and might ask them to do things on camera like wearing a certain outfit or saying certain words.

Over time the acts will get more explicit and the person may even offer money or gifts for the privilege of looking at your child.

What can a parent do?

Know your child and set up rules for using webcams. If your computer has a webcam keep it in the common area of the house. There is no need for webcams in a child’s bedroom.

Secondly, teach your kids not to post anything they wouldn’t want to be seen by a million others. It might seem like fun for your child to dance around in their nightgown to have fun with some girlfriends, but on the Internet that same footage could send the wrong message. Anyone your child sends the video to can post it as long as they have the link.

Our children don’t always make the right decisions so it is up to us to guide them in the right direction. Webcams might be fun for family and friends but they can be a dangerous avenue for sexual predators if used irresponsibly.

When you store important information on a USB device, you take the chance of losing that information. Losing data on a USB can be kind of a mystery, but there are companies out there that can help you get that data back.

These companies use engineering that can recover your lost data over ninety six percent of the time. These companies can even recover data that has been stored on a damaged USB device.

So when you find yourself in a situation where you have lost valuable information you should not assume that this data can not be retrieved.

There are some companies that specialize in repairing damaged USB memory devices. In the process of retrieving your data, companies can also repair your device.

Types of the problems they can repair broken solders, loose plugs, and broken internal connections. Some of the devices that they can fix are USB ports, USB sticks, USB drives, USB thumb drive, and Flash memory devices.

These companies use a type of recovery called a jump drive recovery. They can recover any files from any type of USB drive or memory stick. Sometimes the chips inside the devices will be damaged, but don’t fret; there are some companies that can fix that problem too.

So the conclusion on USB data recovery is that just because information seems to have disappeared, doesn’t mean that it is lost forever.

There are companies that can find and retrieve lost data on a damaged or removed USB device. In the process of finding data, the problems that caused the data to go missing in the first place will be fixed.

This is helpful because it insures that it won’t happen again. There are programs out there that can help you retrieve your data by yourself, but the problem might be bigger than you know, so you should always seek professional help.

There could be problems inside your device that prevent your device from working properly.

Kaspersky Anti-virus has been a renowned antivirus software for years now. The company that develops the software is known as Kaspersky Labs.

Kaspersky Labs has been founded by professional Russian computer security experts and analysts in 1997.

The company has a reputation to often be the first to identify new viruses and to devise methods to combat them. Kaspersky Anti-virus has long been used in Russia and parts of Europe.

However, with its latest release of version 2009, it is believed that Kaspersky Anti-virus is now one of the most popular anti-virus software in the market, outperforming competing products of most of its US rivals such as Symantec and Trend Micro.

The most notable improvement of Kaspersky Anti-virus 2009 can be found in its much simplified interface.

Although the interface is beginner friendly for the less tech savvy but more advanced users can easily configure and control the behaviors of the software, making it easy-to-use yet as powerful as ever.

Kaspersky Anti-virus is preferred over other anti-virus softwares in the market not only because of its effectiveness in detecting and removing malicious programs but also because it has one of the lowest false alarm incidences in the industry.

Besides, it is also able to detect highest number of viruses ever documented compared with other softwares. However, Kaspersky’s proactive/heuristic scan engines and adware/spyware detection still require much improvement.

Being feature rich distinguishes Kaspersky Anti-virus from other anti-virus softwares. Virus signature updates may be available from as short as 1 hour from the last update.

Currently Kaspersky Anti-virus 2009 is also well-equipped for high risk computers with broadband internet connection, providing real-time traffic monitoring and instant malicious codes detection.

Kaspersky Anti-virus is highly recommended because Kaspersky Labs has support staff who works round the clock and will provide customers with immediate attention and assistance.

A mobile phone especially a smart phone or PDA phone is not just that nowadays. Formerly, mobile phone was only used as a mean of long-distance communication.

Now most phones in the market have multi function features, doubling up as organiser, calculator, GPS and internet devices.

A modern smart phone may not cost much in the US. However, personal information, work documents and sensitive data on the mobile are the valuable ones and surely you cannot afford to lose them.

Can you imagine losing your beloved phone or having the data on it stolen or destroyed by malicious attacks?

Therefore it is absolutely important to secure and protect your mobile phone and sensitive information on it from accidental loss, theft and even malicious programs.

Kaspersky Mobile Security is a good software designed for such situations. It has 2 main features in one software, which are anti-theft protection and anti-malware protection.

The anti-theft protection feature allows you to protect personal data stored on the smartphone in the event it is lost or stolen.

Once you realized the loss of your smartphone, you can block it, delete messages, files and contacts remotely.

This can be achieved through the SMS Clean and SMS Block functions. There is also an advanced feature called SIM Watch, which allows you to be notified if anyone has found or stolen your phone and is using it without reporting to the authorities.

Besides, Kaspersky Mobile Security also protects your phone with its anti-malware protection feature. This feature protects your confidential information as well as block annoying SMS spam and malicious attacks intented on your smartphone.

Malicious softwares are also prevented from sending out mass spam SMS and MMS, infect your PC or dial premium rate numbers which will cause you massive bills.

Kaspersky Mobile Security can be used with phones running on Symbian 9.x Series 60 3rd edition and Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.0.

Its single year license fee of $29.95 or 2 years fee at $45.95 is but a small investment to secure your smartphone and give you some peace of mind, knowing that your phone and confidential information are safe.

Have you experienced any unusual behaviors on your computer system after downloading a file from an unknown source?

Have you had a corrupted data replaced by unknown files stored on your hard drive? Have you had a slow internet connection because of high bandwidth usage?

Well, think again.  These things are possibly caused by malware’s malicious actions.

Malware is any program or software that has malicious actions designed specifically to damage a system.

Malware starts by entering a computer system through different ways like attaching itself as an email attachment or downloading itself once a user visits a malicious web site.

Once malware enters the system and the user executes it unknowingly, it then exploits other entry points like system startup process, application or program process and registry keys.

With this, it will have the chance to infect the system with its malicious actions.  It can possibly propagate or spread to other systems.

But not all malware can propagate itself, but they can perform other attacks.  Viruses modify and infect files, Trojans masquerade as a legitimate file to trick individuals and Worms infect networks.

After this, the malware can drop its payloads that can further infect computer systems.  This may result to unusual system behaviors, damaged computers, or corrupted data.

Kinds of Malware

• Virus – is a program that tries to modify the behavior of a computer system without the user’s consent.  A virus requires a host to propagate or spread to other systems.  Its goal is to infect other files in order to replicate itself.
• Trojan – is a program that masquerade as a desirable application.  It does not propagate itself; this is why it is not considered a virus or worm.  But virus and worms can be used to copy a Trojan to other systems or networks as a form of a payload.
• Worm – is a program that is able to spread copies of itself to other systems through network connections, email attachments and file transfers.  Unlike a virus, a worm doesn’t modify files.  Although it may need another program to propagate, it doesn’t change that program or file in any way or form.

Now that we know the differences between the kinds of malware, it will help us to prevent our computers from being attacked or infected.

Consider the following preventive actions to secure your computer system:

1. Apply the latest Microsoft security patches
2. Disable the Autoplay feature of Windows
3. Allow “Read Only” access to network shares
4. Maintain a strong password policy
5. Scan downloaded files first with updated anti-virus software before executing them

You can check our post which is about “Tips to Secure Computer from Virus“. The article gives you a tips to protect your computer from malware.

Phishing is a scam where emails are sent to users falsely claiming to be a legitimate source or company in an attempt to gather private information for the purpose of stealing information or identity theft.

“Phishing” came from the analogy that online scammers are using email techniques to “fish” private information like passwords or credit card number from Internet users.

A typical phishing scenario involves a scammer or criminal sending spam email messages to thousands or millions of email addresses.

These email messages are forged to make them appear to have come from a legitimate or reputable source such as a bank, credit card company or financial institutions.

These emails are usually sent in an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) format and may use legal disclaimers, company logos and URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) that are taken from a particular company’s forged website.

An average computer user may not question or doubt the email if it appears legitimate and to have come from his or her bank.

Once the user click links provided on the scam email and enter his private information on the fake website, phishing attack is successful.

This is because the user was directed to the bank’s fake or forged web site and his information was gathered by the scammer unknowingly.  With this, the scammer will have the chance to use this information for other criminal activities.

Identity theft is the biggest threat of phishing.  Individual users and even companies may suffer from this threat if they are not careful with their private information.

Phishing may result to stolen bank account, stolen money and people’s identity used for criminal activities.  It may also result to loss of trust, embarrassment and damage to credibility.

Therefore, be careful in giving important and private information online.  Be intelligent enough to know the legitimate websites of your bank, and other financial accounts.

Lastly, read carefully the emails you are receiving, and if you are suspicious about it, research first before you give your private information.

Malware can cause damage to your computer especially if you are not aware of its malicious actions.  Usually they modify and infect other files, propagate through the network you’re connected with and cause unusual system behaviors like frequent system restarts and slow performance.

Identifying a malware program on your computer is hard especially if the program that you are suspecting as malicious is a legitimate file.

Worst thing is , once the suspect file affects your computer, it’s too late for you to prevent its attack.

There are tools that you can use in order to help you identify the malware program and prevent further infections on your computer.

Here are the tools that you can use:

• Process Explorer

Process Explorer is very useful when you want to check for the running processes on your system used by the malware infector. This is like a Task Manager but a more detailed one.  This is because you can also check the .dlls and other processes hooked to a particular running process.

• TCP View

TCP View is useful when you want to check the ports and processes used by the malware during its malicious actions. Some malware infectors do not allow users to access this tool or any network tools because they do not want to be discovered.

• Autoruns

Autoruns has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor.  It shows you what programs are configured to run during system startup and registry entries.  With this tool, you would probably be surprised at how many executables are launched automatically!

• Install Rite

This program capture’s the malware activities. It reports the files and registries added, deleted and modified by the malware program.

• UltraEdit

UltraEdit is used to view log files, html files, and other log related files. This is very useful when you want to compare two log files. It will show you the differences between the two logs. With that, you will be able to identify the changes made.

You can find other useful system utilities or tools at Windows Sysinternals.  The tools mentioned above are some of the basic tools that you can use in order to help you identify a malware program and its malicious actions.

Basically, with these tools, you would be able to locate modified registry entries made by the malware program, other files that are dropped during the malware program’s execution and the ports it uses to propagate.

Malware is used to refer viruses, Trojans and worms or any programs that have malicious actions.

Worm, a type of malware, propagates through the network.  This means that worms can propagate via file sharing, instant messaging, downloading applications from unknown sources and visiting malicious web sites.

An example of network-infecting worm is Slammer that spread around the world in less than 15 minutes!  Internet traffic caused by Slammer in its search for computers to infect caused slowdown of the Internet and affected telecommunications and some financial networks.

Trojans and viruses, also types of malware, are not capable of propagating through the network but they can modify and infect files.  They can possibly cause data loss.

Data is very important on businesses and contributes to a business’ profit growth.  If these malware infectors can cause data loss, they can also be a factor to profit loss.

Today’s malware comes as a bundled package: worms now often include Trojan functions or able to infect executable (.exe) files on the victim machine.

They are no longer worms, but blended threats.  Blended threats use multiple infection mechanisms and multiple methods of causing damage.

Malware can cause problems on businesses like data and profit loss and damaged computer systems.

Businesses especially the enterprise and medium segments are usually spending money to have a great implementation of security to their networks.

Usually, they are deploying desktop antivirus software to every client machines, mail and gateway security systems, and strong firewalls.

Some small and medium businesses are having outsourced antivirus protection.  This means that some of them are buying outsourced services like server monitoring, hosted mail security systems and sometimes, bundled software that can make system administration easier.

Small business like a computer café is very prone to malware attacks.  This is because most computer cafés are not implementing security policies to every client machines.

If they implement a security policy like blocking porn web sites, then sales will possibly decrease.  Basically, computer cafes are usually experiencing different malware attacks that can affect the business.

The least that this kind of business can do is to have a strong and effective maintenance of the computers.

Businesses may have strong security policies and protection, but most malware infections still start on every client machine.

This is possibly because most computer users are doing network-related activities like browsing malicious web sites, downloading and executing applications from unknown sources, instant messaging, sending and receiving spam emails with malicious attachments and file sharing.

Malware threats can have a big chance of attacking client machines if users are not safely using their computers.

Some of the common malware problems on businesses are:

• Corrupted data cause by file infectors
• Infected computer systems
• Network bandwidth consumption because of network worms’ propagation
• Employee low productivity because of having an infected workstation
• Malicious attachments from emails that can cause infections to mail servers
• Profit loss caused by damaged computer systems or corrupted data

These common problems can be easily addressed if users are using their computers safely.

To protect your businesses you may consider the following suggestions in order to prevent further malware problems:

• Educate users or employees with regards to malware infections.  This can be done through small meetings, seminar, and sharing and monthly email notifications about malware.
• Implement security policies to network shares like allowing “Read Only” access to shared files, disabling the Autoplay feature of the Windows to all client machines, and strong password policy.
• Make sure to apply all operating system patches.
• Have weekly computer maintenance in order to check if there are client machines that need to be addressed immediately.
• Scan removable drives first before executing the files stored on them.

These suggestions may be simple but can greatly help in order to prevent further malware problems on business.