Premiere Issue
After working as a Real
Estate Sales professional and as a Technologist
currently supplying
Technology Support
Services
to Prudential Connecticut Realty offices in
Newtown, Danbury, Ridgefield, Trumbull and
Southbury, I’ve had the opportunity to draw some
conclusions about many of the issues that Sales
Executives face in their daily use of
technology. I have seen significant
frustrations with incorrectly configured network
settings, virus infections, spam, pfishing,
spyware, email, digital imaging (scanning &
photography) and cellular. It is my hope that
through Technology Tips & Hints you’re computing
experience will be enriched and be more
productive.
I ask that you contact
me at
daf@datainc.com
if you any questions or suggestions for the
newsletter.
I am not sure what the
frequency of release of the newsletter will
ultimately be but I am shooting for a monthly
release now and possibly more often in the
future.
Thanks for reading this far. – Dennis Friedman
The Cornerstones
of a Secure PC
Virus
Protection is a must, not a luxury
If you don’t have it or if it isn’t up to date or if it’s
not running, your computer operating system,
your applications and data are susceptible to
infection from very malicious viruses, Trojan
Horses and Worms. In many cases no data is
destroyed but your machine has slowed to a
snail’s-pace or is just too slow to be usable.
The consequences of a virus infection are costly and
time-consuming. Restoration of full operational
capability after a serious virus infection takes
significant time, time that is now not available
to you to do your work.
The best advice here is to
prevent infection.
This starts with the installation and activation
of an anti-virus program. (my personal and
professional favorite is
CA EZ-trust Antivirus)
Your anti-virus program will provide real-time protection
for incoming viruses via email, web activities
or file transfers.
Your Virus Signature Files must be updated often
and automatically
But its protection is only as good as the last
time you updated the virus protection software.
The critical component of the software is the
virus signature file which is updated almost
daily by all of the major vendors of anti-virus
programs. It is used to tell your anti-virus
software what virus forms it should look for. If
your signature file is not current, you are
susceptible to infection from new virus forms.
Most anti-virus software producers provide an
automated way for updating your software and its
signature files. With the purchase of your
software you typically get one (1) years worth
of updates and signature downloads. There after
you need to purchase additional subscription
time.
This is one of the main problems our agents are
encountering. They are getting infections
because their subscriptions have lapsed (in many
instances by many, many months) and the
automatic downloads are failing.
In other instances most agents I know never
bother to check their anti-virus automated
download log files to see if automated updating
is actually taking place. A simple check of the
date of your anti-virus software signature file
will also tell the tale. If it’s more than a few
days old it’s probably out of date and not being
updated.
Set-up an automated full scan schedule
Even if your signature files are up to date
there is potential that a new virus may have
made it to your system in between signature file
updates. This is why you should schedule a full
virus scan of your system at least once a month
if not more often. The anti-virus programs
provide a facility for establishing and running
an automated schedule. All that is required
after setting it up is that periodically you
again check results logs to see if everything is
okay
Operating
System Updates
Let Windows do the automated updates of the
operating system and major MS Office
applications
Because the Omni-presence of Microsoft’s Windows
Operating System in today’s world, it has become
a favorite target for hackers, both good and
bad. These hackers find inconsistencies and
vulnerabilities in the way Internet Explorer and
other web-facing applications work in a Windows
environment and then develop attacks to exploit
vulnerabilities. These exploits could be
harmless but most often they are malicious and
destructive. Microsoft Corporation’s security
staff issues Operating System updates to close
these vulnerabilities and/or negate the exploits
ability to execute
With the advent of Windows 2000 and now Win XP
the process of automatically obtaining and
installing Operating System updates is super
easy and something everyone should know about
and do.
Just go to your start menu, select control
panel, select the automatic updates Icon. Do
select automatic download daily. Select a time
when you know your machine will typically be on
and you may not be actively using it. Downloads
may require a reboot. But you are under control
as to when these take place.
By doing this simple task you can significantly
enhance your system’s ability to defend against
these exploits.
SPYWARE
Who’s Watching?
Oiye, if computing wasn’t difficult enough with
viruses and spam and other good stuff, along
comes SPYWARE. Spyware items are typically some
type of tracking mechanism that allows the
issuer of the spyware to gain access to
information on your system. This can take the
form of information capturing cookies. Keystroke
capture and worse. They sometimes present
themselves in the form of pop-up advertising.
But in all cases they have planted themselves in
your system, most times without ever letting you
know they have.
Unfortunately there is no one good all-inclusive
solution to spyware or Adware. There is no
single product that is 100% effective against
all spyware. Our solution to this is to use two
or more products which provide overlapping
protection. Yes it is tedious and a little time
consuming but once set-up the solution provides
a very high degree of protection from these
intrusions.
Install Spy
Sweeper by Webroot
There is a one month no-cost trial version you
can use to see if it is for you. According to
recent PC Mag testing it provides the highest
state of protection against most spyware
products.
Install Spybot, Search and Destroy
This free download (donations are solicited)
provides the secondary level of protection,
finding items that may have been missed Spy
Sweeper.
Please bear in mind that as in the anti-virus
and operating system, updates are required to
these programs to ensure that the latest
exploits are being looked for. Both these
programs support automated updating of software
and signature files
Intrusion
Protection
Who’s knocking at my PC’s front door?
If your pc is connected to the internet, there
is high potential that someone out there will
discover this fact and come knocking at your
PC’s front door. It will be an automated knock
from some distant remote computer (maybe someone
just like you who had his machine infiltrated.)
And if they do come a knocking and you
unsuspectingly open the door to them and you are
not protected by some personal or other type of
Intrusion Protection then you machine faces the
prospect of being attacked, penetrated and
taken-over. Oh did I tell you, you might not
even know its happening.
Any time you connect to the internet there will
be both legitimate and many illegitimate
attempts to identify open channels of
communication used between conversing systems.
They usually called ports. All too often initial
security and system set-ups leave many of these
ports open to intrusion. If access to your
system is gained thru these ports significant
damage can be done. In many cases your system,
unbeknownst to you, is now being used as a relay
for other machines or is being used to detect
other systems that might be vulnerable.
There are only two viable ways to protect your
system from these intrusions.
Never hook up to the internet.
No way of getting taken over then, I guess this
might not work for you.
Use
a Firewall Product
There are many excellent
personal firewall products on the market.
Windows XP Service Pack 2 offers a basic one
which will provide modest levels of protection.
But if you have a broadband connection and spend
significant time online then you need something
stronger. Zone Labs offer a free firewall
product (as well as higher level products)
called
Zone Alarm.
This free download provides excellent levels of
intrusion protection at a price that cannot be
beat. And it provides an update path to its
higher level products such as ZoneAlarm Pro and
their new product Zone Alarm Security Suite.
I’d check them all out
before deciding upon one.
