The viruses and malware are practically everywhere these days. A recent virus outbreak on Facebook came in the form of an app.

It was an astoundingly clever one too. The app, disturbingly called If I Die, worked in a rather curious way. You were supposed to take a video for after your death.

The video was supposed to be played by someone you loved after you died. The app’s advertising slogan – “Death can catch you anywhere, anytime. Leave your If I Die message before it’s too late”. Well, how overwhelmingly silly.

But if you did find it oddly sweet somehow and you downloaded it, that’s when it hit you. It really did – it was a virus and not really an app that all.

It went and stole passwords and tried to steal from you. It did other things too – stole your photos, took pictures with your WebCam and spied on you.

It was one nasty piece of work. So what kind of method you use for Facebook virus removal? Usually, Facebook virus removal doesn’t need anything other than your traditional antivirus.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the only Facebook virus out there. Far from it, it’s only one of the latest ones to actually get any publicity. A while ago, Koobface was the Facebook virus that everyone wanted to talk about (yes, it’s Facebook spelled backwards).

In some instances as with KoobFace, Facebook virus removal can be done without actually turning to an antivirus software package.

While it can be done, it shouldn’t be the way you choose unless you don’t have antivirus (why you don’t have antivirus is anyone’s guess as there are plenty of great free choices out there).

Actually, KoobFace has been designed to thwart any attempts at manual removal. Manual removal requires that you be familiar with editing the registry. You’ll be able to find detailed instructions to do with deleting various registry entries all over the web.

With less nefarious Facebook viruses, removal tends to be slightly easier. For instance, with some Facebook viruses, all you need to do is to deny access to it and delete it from your account.

Doing that is pretty easy. You just need to go to the Account tab on your Facebook account, click on Privacy Settings, and then choose Edit your Setting for Apps, Games and Websites. At that point, it’s easy to remove the virus and deny access.

Prevention would be far better than attempting desperate cures like this, of course. Make sure that you don’t use Facebook apps and quizzes for no reason, and you should go a long way towards securing your account.

Facebook Virus Removal – what to do when you’re Infected is a post from: Computer Spot

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Ever wondered about who thought of the term “con artist” to describe someone who is obviously just a thief? Well, they also call them social engineers.

It’s for reason of course – it’s quite an art how they use their understanding of human nature to manipulate people and get them to do exactly as they wish.

This kind of social engineering in pursuit of fraud is particularly useful in the era of social networking. It helps hackers really get a Facebook virus in and about.

A very popular thing for makers of Facebook virus and malware examples to do to spread their evil, often, is to hack into a person’s account, gain control of it, and then to chat over Facebook to his closest friends with some dishonest plan in mind.

They think of some kind of sob story about how they are far from home, have been robbed and need some money. The person who receives this message will believe that since it comes from his friend’s Facebook account, it has to be genuine.

Here’s the perfect example for why they call this “social engineering”. Facebook has thousands and thousands of Facebook applications. They are made for all kinds of interests. People download them to add to the fun of it all.

Facebook doesn’t scrutinize or approve most of those apps that are on offer. Facebook’s app list is more like the Google Apps Marketplace than like the iTunes App Store in this way.

So when you download and install a Facebook app, you have no idea what it is – it could be a Facebook virus, for all you know. In many cases, it actually is.

And even if you don’t download an actual Facebook virus posing as an app, you could be downloading something programmed by some school kid who won’t be careful with the access he has to your personal information. You can get robbed that way.

What do you do when you find an app that says something irresistible like, “Find out about which of your friends is about to break up in the next 20 min”? Can you really resist? That’s social engineering for you.

There are many more tricks they have up their sleeve. For instance, how about a message you might get that says, “Here’s a great new video about you”.

Who could resist this?  Even if you receive this from a friend, there is no way you could know if your friend really sent this – or if a hacker gained access to your friend’s account. Almost always, this is a virus.

The Ways a Facebook Virus can Spread is a post from: Computer Spot

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How often do you use your personal computer? More than likely you make use of this handy resource on a daily basis. Moreover, you probably have more than one PC or Mac in your home that gets used every day.

At this point, most people simply cannot function on a day-today basis without their trust computers at their side. Since these advanced little machines are so extremely important for routine rituals and chores, it is naturally important to keep your PC healthy and running properly.

After all, it is not worth much if it can’t perform how you want it to. This means that you may require free computer virus protection to stay on the safe side.

Think about all of the sites and email addresses you come in contact on a daily basis. Whether you realize it or not, all of these can have an impact on your computer’s safety.

Surely you’ve been surfing the web before and random pop-ups covered your screen. There was a time when many personal computer browsers had no clue how to deal with these. Every time you clicked one closed, three more would arise.

This was utterly annoying to say the very least. Even though many major browsers have been updated so they can deal with most pop-ups now, you still might require free computer virus protection of some sort. Sure enough, some spyware still gets through.

Take a look at your PC more closely to see what current anti-virus software you have on it. If you have Norton or Symantec, go ahead and do a full hard drive scan to make certain your computer is free of all viruses and spyware.

This only takes an hour or so to run. If you do not have any anti-virus software to assist you with this, proceed to acquire a free computer virus protection download online.

Websites that can easily assist you with this are CyberDefender.com, Symantecstore.com, and webroot.com. Take a closer look at these so you can get started with a good anti-virus software program now. The sooner you protect you PC, the better.

A lot of people assume that their computers are free of any damaging viruses and spyware. This is never a good idea. After all, you can’t really know if you need a free computer virus protection download if you haven’t scanned your hard drive for threats.

Fortunately many websites that offer these free virus protection downloads can scan your computer promptly for spyware and other potential dangers.

Some issues that may arise if your computer is infected are as follows; The speed of your processor seems slower than it was originally, the PC crashes regularly, the screen locks up and you have to restart the computer, or certain password protected accounts appear to be accessed by someone else.

Go ahead and see which free computer virus protection download is right for you now!

Free Computer Virus Protection is a post from: Computer Spot

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Viruses and malicious code have been a major problem since the rise in popularity of the internet. A more recent, and growing problem are botnets, and the effect that they are having on cyber crime. Just what are botnets and who should be responsible for cleaning them up?

Botnets are a group of computers that have been compromised and that link themselves together to form a network.

The computers are compromised by malware, and are termed zombie computers. They do the work for the virus without any input from the owner of the computer.

These networks serve many purposes. They are normally used to generate money from the person who created the botnet, or they may be used to attack a website or a server.

Attacks such as these are called denial of service attacks, or DOS. They are intended to simply create havoc by stopping anyone else from using the server or website.

Spam is another function of these networks. Each computer in the botnet (and there may be thousands-even a million or more) sends just a small number of the spam emails in order to escape detection by the usual spam detection protocols. However, when a million computers send out a few spam emails-that’s a lot of spam that is sent out.

The worst of the attacks by these services include financial cyber crimes. The larger the botnet, the more powerful it becomes, allowing the user to go bigger, and more damaging in the attacks that it makes.

The services of a botnet may be kept for just the creator, but some will allow others to use it for their own purposes, for a price.

Botnets can be wiped out by simply installing the right anti-malware software and keeping it up to date. The problem is that too many internet users either do not know what they are supposed to do in order to keep their computer safe, or else they simply choose not to.

Though it is their right to risk their own personal files, personal information and computer, the problem comes because of the fact that their inaction drastically increases the risks to other people’s computers and personal information.

And while they can choose to risk harm themselves, it’s not fair when that then hurts more responsible computer users.

Some internet service providers (ISPs) in some parts of the world are taking action. In Germany for instance, the government has paid for call centers to be set up that the ISPs report infected users to.

The call center calls the user and works with them to clean their machine. Refusal to do so can result in quarantine.

Microsoft also wants to see stronger measures. They now offer their antivirus software to anyone found to have none, and do it all through the Windows update service and they want to see enforced quarantine of infected files. The question is, whose job is it really, to deal with this?

The crimes that are committed are real, and can be very serious and for this reason is may be that more governments step up and enforce clean up.

Really though, the work should be done by the owners of these machines-the problem is that without someone to force them to do so, many people will simply ignore the problem.

Who Should be Responsible for Cracking Botnets? is a post from: Computer Spot

There is a virus that is aimed at the social networks-Facebook in particular, that is sweeping through the computers of the people who use the social networks. This very dangerous virus can be hard to remove and can cause a great deal of damage to your computer.

Koobface is a worm, and is not actually a new problem. It has been around for some time, but is becoming increasingly prevalent because of the number of people who now use the social networking sites.

Infection is via a link on the profile of one of your friends-or it might be sent to you via private message or be posted on your profile. Because the link is from a friend, and this encourages trust, and leads to many people clicking the link. A video then plays which contains the Koobface worm hidden within, which silently installs itself onto your computer without telling you.

It then searches your cookies on your computer. These are small files that contain your login information and other visit information to many sites.

Your username and password will be contained within, and when the worm finds the cookies for your social networks, it takes the information and logs into your account as you. It then sends on the links to your friends, and posts it onto your profile so that it can be spread to your friends as well.

Once on your computer it hijacks certain files. It will cause any searches that you perform to be routed through its own servers so that it can show you links that it wants you to visit, rather than the ones that you really want.

Most commonly the first link that it shows you will send you to another, dangerous site. These secondary sites will contain viruses or other malware, thus drastically increasing the risks of damage to your computer.

One of the more troublesome aspects of Koobface is that it blocks your access to the websites that offer tools that remove it, such as antivirus websites. This self protection may prevent people from getting help, and so the situation gets worse-ultimately their computer can become what is known as a Zombie-or a member of a botnet (a network of computers that are linked together and cause cyber crimes).

Keeping your antivirus software up to date is an important part of protecting yourself from the Koobface virus, as is a common sense approach. It is important to not click on links on your friend’s profiles that you are unsure of.

Unfortunately, though they will try, many antivirus programs don’t do well at removing Koobface. Instead a program called Malwarebytes should be used. This is not an all purpose antivirus program and so should not be relied upon (instead requiring you to also run an antivirus program), but will remove certain items of destructive malware such as this.

More importantly it does not run in real time-instead you need to load it up and run it when it is convenient to you. It also does not auto-update, and so users should cultivate the habit of updating and running it daily.

When used correctly, Malwarebytes is a wonderful piece of software that can help provide essential protection for your computer.

The Koobface Virus is a post from: Computer Spot

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There is a worrying phenomenon making it’s way around the walls of your Facebook friends, and it risks infecting your computer with malware and viruses. The phenomenon is called clickjacking.

Clickjacking is a scam wherein your friends are tricked into clicking a link. When they do this, a link will be placed on their Facebook wall, to trick others into clicking.

The click through from your friend’s wall will lead you to a second page, where a video may be played, or images shown.

Sometimes the videos will contain a virus, or else there may be a fake, overlaid page that is invisible. When you click on the ‘play’ button you are actually clicking another button on the invisible page, which may then be used to take your money, make you buy something through a logged in Amazon or eBay account, or which may steal your information.

One of these fake links takes you to a page with a video, which has a virus called ‘Koobface’ embedded. Simply watching the video installs the virus, which then takes control of the cookies on your computer that log you into social networks.

The virus logs in as you, and posts more links to the virus laden videos. They may even send the links by private message.

These scams work because they post the links through your friend’s profile, on on their wall. Or else they pretend that your friend likes a particular page, which encourages you to have a look too.

They rely upon the fact that you trust your friend and are curious to see what it is that they liked enough to share the link.

There are a few things that people can do in order to protect themselves from clickjacking attacks. The web browser Firefox has generally been considered the most secure browser for a long time.

There is now an add-on called ‘NoScript’ that protects you from this problem-and it is in fact the only free, and easily available product to do so.

A commercial product called GuardedID can also help, but of course carries a charge. Microsoft has an experimental operating system that they have built protection into, called Gazelle. It is based on Internet Explorer but is not yet available to the general public.

With so few programs available that can protect you, what else can you do to be safe? The main thing to remember is to not click links on social networking sites. Though they seem to be from friends there is a big risk to clicking something that you cannot be sure is genuine.

If you see a link on your profile, posted by a friend, or else posted on their own wall, you might want to ask them about it before you click it.

When this happens your friend won’t know that they are posting links unless they are told-and if not told they will continue to spread this malware. If it was a link that they meant to share then presumably it is safe, and they will be able to confirm it for you.

If in doubt-ask. Don’t risk your computer.

Don’t Fall Prey to Clickjacking is a post from: Computer Spot

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On November 1st, Microsoft took an unusual move throughout the USA. They started offering their Microsoft Security Essentials software when their automatic Windows update ran.

This move has computer security companies Trend Micro and Panda complaining. These two companies offer competing anti-virus software suites, which they seem to feel will suffer as a result of this move.

Microsoft uses a facility called the ‘action center’ to monitor certain aspects of your computer. One of those is whether or not you have any anti-virus software running. If you don’t, the action center will now offer you their own anti-virus software when your regular Windows update runs.

The reason that they claim they are doing this, is that despite the fact that there are so many free anti-virus software suites available today, many people still choose to take the risk and go without.

These people, for whatever reason, have nothing installed and as a result are likely to quickly become infected with viruses and other malware.

Once infected they may become part of a botnet-a network of infected computers that work together in order to commit cyber crimes, though their owners know nothing of what they are doing.

They are also likely to pass on their viruses to others, to spread the infections through email, instant messaging and other methods so that they can then steal the personal information of other people.

When taking this into consideration it could be argued that this latest move is for the greater good. It will encourage people who have yet to install anti-virus software just because they haven’t thought about it yet to get protected. It will also help people to find reliable and trustworthy software, if they are otherwise unsure where or how to get it.

However, some are arguing that it goes against the competition rulings that have been issued in previous cases against Microsoft.

In the past the courts in various countries have ruled that by bundling its media player, and web browser with its operating systems, it was forming an unfair monopoly in the market. It was ordered to cease bundling and offer them separately instead.

The fact that they are merely offering it as a suggested download though, instead of automatically downloading and installing it is likely to count in their favor-making it seem as though they are simply offering help rather than forcing their software on people.

Unfortunately, because they are offering this software through the Windows update service, many people are uncomfortable. The update service is compulsory, and so no matter whether you want it, you will be offered the software if you don’t have something running.

This might seem like a sensible move, but the other side of it is new installations. When an operating system is first installed on a computer it won’t have anti-virus protection. The user must then go and select it.

If they are offered it automatically when bringing their operating system up to date, they may take the easy route rather than finding another product.

Whether this leads to further court action against Microsoft will depend in part upon whether any other company chooses to complain.

Microsoft Pushes Security Essentials is a post from: Computer Spot

When a person has a cold or other virus, it’s normally pretty easy to tell. But when your computer has a virus, it is much harder to tell, and in fact can be almost impossible to tell until it’s almost too late.

Computer viruses and other malware can badly damage the files on your computer. That damage can ultimately spread to the operating system that runs your computer, and when it reaches that point your computer may become unusable, completely destroyed.

What is more, these malware infections can come from many sources, some of which you may never have considered. Online videos may be infected, and infect your computer when you watch them. Emails, software installation files, and even photographs that are sent over instant messenger may carry viruses.

Once you have the virus or other malware on your computer, it may sit dormant for some time. Regardless of whether it is instantly activated or whether its payload isn’t activated for some time the damage will eventually be the same if the virus isn’t discovered and removed.

Until the virus becomes active there will be no symptoms. Nothing will be going wrong with your computer that is related to the virus and hence there will be nothing to lead you to suspect a virus. This is where prevention comes into play.

Regular scans of your computer may at this point pick up a virus that may have found its way onto your machine. Once found, it should delete or quarantine the infected file so that it cannot do any further damage to your computer.

If a virus is active on your machine then there may be several symptoms. Your machine may start running more slowly than normal, or it may crash at random times, or freeze up. Particular applications may be the worst affected, and may not run-often including any anti-virus software that you have installed.

Files, directories or even entire hard drives may not work, may be missing, or you may be denied access to them. There may be pop ups appearing too-these may show errors messages from your computer, or they may be advertising pop ups that come from external web sites.

Other types of malware may cause your browser homepage to be redirected to another page, or all search may land on fake search results. Tool bars may be installed in your browser that you didn’t personally install.

Some of these events may be caused by other problems with your computer so if they start to occur it’s important that you take steps to fix possible viruses. The first step is to download and install a trusted anti-virus suite like AVG Free, or Microsoft Security Essentials.

Running these, alongside a malware removal tool like MalwareBytes should remove or heal most infections. It then becomes important to just prevent future infections, and this is as simple as regularly running your anti-virus, and anti-malware software.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that more is better though when it comes to anti-virus. One program is enough, and more than one can cause clashes on your system, leading to other problems on top of what you are already experiencing.

How Can You Tell if You’ve Got a Virus? is a post from: Computer Spot

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We all hate finding out that our computer has a virus and, until recently, there was not a lot that you could do about it except either pay a tech specialist to fix it up or just try to keep it blocked in the first place.

The problem is, there are only so many ways to be able to stop a virus and that means the more we know, the better we can fight them.

If you have not yet heard, the Google redirect virus is one troublesome computer pest that is a real pain to deal with.

This particular strain of computer virus will take over your computer’s web browser in such a way that it ends up sending you to annoying places on the web that you probably do not want to go.

With the Google redirect virus, it is one of those types of viruses that are a hassle more than they are purely destructive, but it appears that it was designed to make money for the design team.

A redirect virus is a big pain because it means you can not go to where you want on the web since it takes over and sends you to some other place. This is a big pain and definitely not something any of us want to deal with so knowing that you can get rid of it once and for all is going to feel good.

Most people imagine that they can do very little about this type of virus, but that is not true. There are plenty of ways to be able to stop it and you can find them a lot more of a hassle than anything else.

There is plenty of great information out there which is going to help you get that Google redirect virus off your computer if you simply take the time to look around for it which is definitely what you want to be able to do.

It is worth discovering the smart ways to eliminate this hassle from your computer because you will be very glad that you took the time to do so once all is said and done.

The best part of this process is that it is really not so hard to conquer such a virus if you know what to do. The Google redirect virus is easier to handle than most because it is a fairly quick fix, compared to many more serious infections.

With Google redirect virus removal software and services, it is much easier to get rid of that virus once and for all sot hat you do not have to deal with it in the future. Make the choice to be virus free and you will be glad you did.

Don’t Let The Google Redirect Virus Slow You Down is a post from: Computer Spot

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For a long time, the writers of viruses and other malware programs have been working on ever new ways to trick people into installing their virus, or allowing it to access their computer.

One of the newer ways is proving incredibly effective, and is something that everyone should be aware of.

You may know the situation. You are sitting at your computer, looking working online. Suddenly, a pop up window opens that tells you that you have a large number of viruses, and that you need to clean your computer. What do you do?

The first thing that you should do is look at the name of the pop up. If it is the antivirus software that you are sure that you have on your machine, then there is no risk in going ahead and using it to remove the virus.

But the trouble is that many of the rogues are named similarly, with just minor differences in their name compared to the real deal.

These rogue anti-virus programs are cleverly designed so that they look exactly like some of the most popular of the genuine anti-virus programs as well.

They use the same icons, presumably taken from the genuine program, to make them look exactly like the real thing. They even use names that are similar, such as ‘Antivirus Live’, ‘Antivirus XP’, ‘Total Win Vista Security’ or any other of a long list of names that are designed to make them appear genuine.

The rogue programs get you two ways. First, they say that you need to pay a fairly large sum of money to install the program that will clean your machine of viruses that you don’t actually have-the readings are all fake.

So, having been scammed out of your money, you install the program-only you aren’t getting what you hoped for.

Instead you normally get a trojan. The program will appear to be doing something useful in the front end, but behind the scenes it is downloading other, perhaps more dangerous malware onto your computer.

This may be viruses, or spyware, or any number of pieces of software that pose a danger both to your computer and to your identity.

Eventually your computer will start to perform badly and you will realize that you have a virus. Unfortunately by then it will have corrupted the antivirus software on your own machine to the point that it won’t run, and will block the installation of any genuine antivirus software.

It makes the removal of these rogue programs incredibly problematic. MalwareBytes is one of the best programs for removing the majority of rogue programs, but unfortunately even this may not get everything.

If you are struggling to remove it from your own machine, Google search for the name that shows on your machine, as well as the word ‘removal’ and follow the instructions that you find.

What you should never, ever do is click to install the program-and never click ‘no’, or ‘cancel’ or in fact don’t click anything on the pop up window! Even clicking the ‘X’ in the corner in an attempt to close it will lead to the installation of the program. All you can do it shut down your browser by right clicking on it in the toolbar, and selecting ‘close window’.

Unfortunately many people are being tricked in this way, and the real tragedy is that until they clicked to install the rogue program, they probably never had a virus at all.

When a Virus Isn’t What it Seems is a post from: Computer Spot