This article prepared by Melissa Lenz, Technician at Techline, Inc. will describe what types of threats reside on the internet and how to prevent them from interfering with your privacy, identity and computer. We’re going to talk about Malware, Spyware and Adware as well as viruses, worms and Trojans. We’re going to explain how to protect your computer from these items.
Your Computer is an investment. Many people make money with their computers; others just use it as a toy. What it comes down to is that it doesn’t really matter how you use it, when you want to use it you want it to work efficiently and effectively. Keeping your machine running smoothly and fast is a priority for most of us.
There are many things on the internet that are great. The internet has a plethora of information. You can find just about anything you can think of online. Movie trivia, medical facts, sports facts…the list can go on and on. Unfortunately, for all the great things on the internet, there are also the bad things on the internet. Scams, Viruses, etc…The most prevalent being Malware. At Techline, about 60% of all the machines that come into our shop for repair are being brought in due to some sort of infection.
What is Malware? Malware (short for “malicious software”) is any type of software designed to be transmitted to a computer without the owner’s consent. It is designed to cause damage to or steal information from the owner’s computer.
What can Malware do to your machine?
- • Malware infections can:
- • Damage the functionality of hardware and software.
- • Slow down your computer or Internet connection.
- • Prevent a computer from connecting to the Internet.
- • Compromise confidential or private information.
- • Spread these infections to other computers on the network.
Viruses – Viruses spread through data transferred from an infected computer either across a computer network or using a physical source such as a floppy disk, USB Flash Drive or CD-ROM. Viruses usually have to attach themselves to a file and they might corrupt or delete data on your computer, use your e-mail program to spread itself to other computers, or even erase everything on your hard disk.
Worms – Worms are similar to viruses, but they do not require user interaction to spread. They self replicate but usually do not need to attach to a file. Worms usually take up bandwidth and slow your internet connection considerably but usually do not corrupt data like a virus does.
Trojan Horses – Trojan horses appear as legitimate files, but when opened, infect a computer. They often reside in files downloaded from the Internet or e-mail attachments.
Spyware – Spyware infections collect data from a computer without the owner’s consent. Spyware usually installs stealthily on a machine. The user usually has no idea that it’s there. Spyware can steal personal information and can also track everything you do online.
Adware – Adware infections display advertising in various forms, such as pop-ups, on a computer without the owner’s consent.
The first question a customer asks me is “How did I get these on my machine?” The answer is fairly simple. Most of the computers that come in with malware infections usually have an outdated Anti-Virus program or NO anti-virus programs, or they have peer-to-peer file sharing programs on them.
What is Peer-to-Peer File Sharing you ask?
Peer-to-Peer file-sharing involves the use of software that allows you to download files (music, movies, documents, etc) from other users on the network, rather than from a trusted source. Peer-to-peer file-sharing is the most common source of malware infections, as it is impossible to either verify whether the files are authentic and unmodified or to track down the source of the file.
Basically what a P2P network entails is a bunch of computers sharing information. Each computer essentially becomes a server as more computers connect to it to obtain software.
Examples of peer-to-peer network software include:
- • FrostWire
- • Limewire
- • KaZaA
- • Gnutella
- • BearShare
- • FreeNet
- • And any BitTorrent client
Another way that these elements can infect your machine is through email and email attachments
These emails come from all over and sometimes it appears that it has come from someone that you might know. One email went around for quite some time tricking people into thinking that they had received and e-Card from a friend…it usually says something like “You have received an e-Card from Carol, John, Michael” They make it a fairly common name because let’s face it. Who doesn’t know a Carol or a John or a Michael?
Sometimes you receive emails that appear they are from a bank either real or fake. It may appear to be from a bank that you actually do business with or from PayPal or eBay stating something like “you have limited access” or “someone has been trying to access your account with the wrong password.”
These are called Phishing emails. In the field of computer security, phishing is “the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.”
The email is generally not traceable, it sometimes can ask you to click on a link in the email in which case you are asked to enter sensitive information or you are attacked by malware, spyware, adware, viruses or worms. A lot of times the reason that is given for the email is that your account will be deactivated, or there has been fraud on the account. The website is usually fairly convincing with the same look and feel as the real thing. The URL is usually VERY close to the real URL but not quite. They usually contain the same logos and other markers that make you think it’s the real deal.
When someone falls for one of these emails it usually leads to Identity Theft.
Here are some quick Identity Theft Statistics
- Washington State has been in the top 10 States for ID Theft Victims since 2003 (when Identity Theft Statistics recording started)
- 9.91 Million Americans are the victims of Identity Theft per year
- Losses totaling $52.6 Billion Dollars
- 47 Billion dollars a year are lost by BUSINESS’S due to Personal ID Theft.
- 38%-48% of victims find out about the ID theft within 3 months of the crime, while 9%-18% don’t find out about it for up to 4 years. Victims can spend anywhere from 3 – 5840 hours dealing with an Identity theft crisis depending on the severity of the crime.
- Victims spend on average 600 hours recovering from Identity Theft not to mention the thousands of dollars they lose from lost wages and possibly the money spent from hiring someone to help them out of this terrible situation.
If you receive an email from an institution that you have dealt with and feel there maybe some merit to the email, never click on the link provided in the email. Always open your browser and navigate to the website via the address bar or a link in your favorites. If there is an issue with your account, when you log in there will be an alert or you can check the message center in your account.
The best way to protect your privacy, identity and your computer against these malicious elements is to make sure you have an Anti-virus Program installed on your machine. Some Internet Service Providers provide a free copy of an Anti-Virus Program to their subscribers at no cost to their customers. Comcast and MSN both provide McAfee and MSN also provides Webroot’s Spysweeper for Spyware protection.
Antivirus – Antivirus software is used to detect and deal with viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. This is normally done by removing the infection from the file, but if this action fails, the antivirus software may quarantine or delete the infected files to prevent the infection from spreading to other files.
And in addition to an Anti-Virus Program, an Anti-Spyware program should be installed as well.
Anti-Spyware – Anti-Spyware software is used to detect, clean, and prevent spyware and adware programs from infecting your computer. Anti-Spyware programs clean your computer by removing infected files and, in some cases, by preventing the files from being downloaded in the first place.
Do not get Rogue Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware programs confused with the real thing. These programs will continually tell the user that they are infected with malware and that the user should buy their product to remove the malware. These programs are nothing more than a scam and buying the program will not remove the rogue program, nor will it remove any actual spyware on the computer. When you purchase these programs you also run the distinct chance that within a few hours you will have fraudulent activity on your credit card.
After hearing about all the threats on the internet, the wonderful world of the information superhighway, the place that everyone wants to be and you’re not willing to give up on no matter how problematic it may be…you may be wondering “how do I protect my computer against these terrible, terrible things?”
Ok…well here is what you need to do:
- Visit only trusted websites. There are multitudes of websites that anybody can visit. You should always be alert to what websites you browse.
- Only download software from trusted sources. When downloading programs download directly from that companies website instead of someone’s personal website as you do not know if that person has tampered with the program.
- Do not interact with online advertisements. If you get any online advertisements do not close it by clicking close or cancel in the advertisement as this could allow malware to infect your computer. Instead close the pop-up by clicking on the close “X” button in the top right hand corner of the pop-up.
- If there is no close “X” button hit Alt + F4 buttons.
- Make sure you have a trusted Anti-Virus AND Anti-Spyware program installed. It is not only important to have them installed but to make sure they are updated and ran on a regular basis.
- AVOID Peer-to-Peer File sharing programs.
