Main > Everything Else
Antivirus talk, also fan mod for overheating routers
spystyle:
("antivirus talk" is below, for "fan mod talk" scroll down until you see an attached image)
Hello from Maine,
I have been building and using computers for many years, I've never really had a "virus problem" so I never looked deeply into it. I just run a weekly virus scan with "Avast" while I sleep. I run "SpyBot" daily.
My good buddy, on the other hand, has virus trouble! He is convinced that some people are targeting his business computer with viruses. He is a nice fella and I want to help him out.
So I will research the subject, but I was hoping there would be a few IT hi-tech guys here in the forum who could advise me.
My initial response would be "Avast antivirus" set to "aggressive" (as opposed to "default") a "hardware firewall", also a "software firewall" (Zone Alarm basic)
I always assumed a "hardware firewall" is the ultimate in computer defense. I will find out more as I research.
The kicker is my buddy has no money! His business was sabataged and he is at minus 700 clams right now, so I am hoping to help him out using older hardware and free software.
I can hear you now "Linux! It's virus proof!" - But he is not computer savvy and I don't know if he is willing to learn linux. He will be using Windows 2000 SP4.
Care to advise me?
Thank you,
Craig
Zero_Hour:
As part of your research, you really need to analyze his computer usage habits. What kinds of sites does he go to, what bowser(s) does he use? How does he deal with spam and mail attachments? Does he download software from the net, and if so where from? All the antivirus and spyware protection in the world is useless if you have a user who runs malicious code out of laziness or ignorance. He doesn't have to become his own IT guy, but if he wants to use a computer for his business, he really should know the basic do's ad don'ts. Ultimately, you want to make sure he is not inflicting these problems on himself via bad practices.
And not to pass judgment on him, but if he is using Internet explorer, and you find cookies for adult sites on his system, I'll bet you money that's the source of his problems. Having worked in a University environment where there was no filtering, I have seen that problem a surprising number of times.
spystyle:
I tell everyone I know to avoid IE and use FireFox. I installed FireFox on his rig. Though I'm not exactly sure what he uses.
tetsu96:
Spyware and viruses can be pretty tricky sometimes. Even with Firefox it's possible to be infected (use trusted extensions and be aware of potential flash vulnerabilities).
But here's the fastest things that can be done to minimize chances of being infected:
Keep current with patches and software versions. This includes the operating system and software used on it. If items like Winamp and Flash don't get updated then they can potentially be hacked.
Spybot - good choice in scanning tools but no scanner is 100% fullproof in catching everything. Not that you should use multiple scanners regularly, but if you suspect an infection, it may not be a bad idea. Also, this lets you in very quickly to check things like startup files and such which you can do outside of Spybot but it's pretty convenient.
Antivirus - doesn't matter too muich which you use, just make sure it has the latest virus definitions and that it's running (usually viruses and vicious malware disable the scanners once infecting a system).
Firewalling - it may be overkill to use a software and hardware firewall, but it's not the worst thing you can do. The messages that pop up saying "xxxxx is trying to access the internet" may help him catch something which sounds like it shouldn't be starting up.
All that said, if he still manages to get infected, here's 2 good ways of handling it:
Safe Mode: Only starts enough services and software to get you onto the system to work. If you're running AV and Adware scans this is a good mode to insure a running process doesn't stop you from finding things.
Boot Discs: Barts PE and similar can allow you to make scanning and / or recovery discs. Nothing from the local hard drive should be running when you boot off a boot disc, and again, scanning should be more effective this way.
Hope that helps.
shorthair:
I thought it was sorta standard to have a software firewall. Also, I'm told my router has an internal one. For anti-virus ware, I find Ad-aware and AVG are more capable than Spybot. And I have norton av running.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version