New antivirus hit the web marketplace very often. Most are just rehashes of what already there. However, Panda Cloud Antivirus distinguishes itself by being perhaps the first cloud-based antivirus on the security market.
Panda Cloud Antivirus is the first free cloud based Thin-Client Antivirus. It took almost 3 years to develop. Cloud-based antivirus is an interesting alternative to more conventional computer security solutions. Software is only partially installed on your system (thin-client) while core files reside on PandaLabs’ servers. It utilizes a constantly updated, real-time database of virus signature files retrieved from community users in the cloud in order to identify threats and protect your computer.
What is Cloud-Based Antivirus
Panda Cloud Antivirus is very easy to configure, and use. It scans files through Internet which makes it very light on system. It is extremely light as all the work is done in the cloud, so light that you won’t notice it is there.
Panda Cloud Antivirus is available in Free Edition or Pro Edition. Pro-Edition come with behavioral analysis of running processes, automatic vaccination of USB memory keys and hard drives, automatic and transparent upgrades, VIP support and no nagging screens.
You can download the latest version of Panda Cloud from http://www.cloudantivirus.com.
Published by Spyware, Adware and Computer Security News (www.spywarenews.org)
Certification for antivirus operating on Microsoft Windows 7 has been issued by independent test lab AV-Test. Nineteen antivirus products have been tested for Q2/2010 in term of protection, repair and usability. The full reports can be view here http://www.av-test.org/certifications?order=repair_desc&lang=en
Certified antivirus products were as follows:
Uncertified antivirus products were:
* Total score calculate from AV-Test Product Review and Certification Report – 2010/Q2
Of the 19 security products tested, 13 received AV-Test certification for Windows 7. If you are looking for antivirus to protect your Windows 7, you won’t go wrong with any of the certified ones.
Published by Spyware, Adware and Computer Security News (www.spywarenews.org)
What are the top ways that people can get viruses on their computers?
Emails – All of those inspirational or chain letter emails seem tempting and friendly, however, they are also one of the highest at risk for computer viruses to be embedded within them. It is in your best interest to forget about how much money you may get for forwarding it to everyone on your list, as instead of earning money, you may just find yourself spending it to purchase a new computer, or to fix your now broken one because of that inspirational chain letter.
Executable Files – Games, software, programs that promise that if you use them you will never get another virus again. All of these should be considered malicious until you can prove they are not. Running virus scanners or trojan cleaners on any program that requires execution is always the safest precaution that you can take.
Links – Clicking a link seems a very innocent and harmless thing to do. However, some links themselves can be embedding with coding that can cause your computer to pick up a virus without your knowledge. If you ever open a link that brings up a very quick dos box that just as quickly disappears. Do NOT reboot your computer until you have run every virus scanner and trojan remover that you have in your arsenal.
Pictures – Pictures from your spouse, children or grandchildren can be tempting to open right away. You know these people right? So why not trust that what they are sending is perfectly safe.
These suggestions will help not only you prevent you from getting a virus, but also for everyone who may be on your contact list.
A worm is a small piece of software that will use a computers networks and securities to replicate itself. The worm will scan the network for more machines that may have this specific security hole. If it finds one, it will copy itself to the new computer and using the security hole, will then replicate itself again and again in this manner.
Worms can work in many ways and one of the most common ways is through emails. They can attach themselves to your contact list and then send emails out to everyone on your list. This is an ingenious way to get the worm spread around since most people see no harm in opening an email that originates from someone they know and trust.
Computer Worms Detection
Over the years I have found a foolproof way to discover whether a worm has attached itself to my contact list. Create a contact named AAAAA, five A’s should be plenty. List AAAAA’s email address as your own. This way if a worm attaches itself to your computer and sends out a worm to all of your contacts, you will be the first one to get it. Should you ever open your email and find an email from AAAAA in there, you will know that a worm has attached itself and can then send out another email warning your contacts to avoid emails from your address until you have corrected the problem.
As everyone is well aware, malware (malicious programs designed to create trouble or steal data) is a major concern these days. However, not all malware is created equal. Some is easy to get rid of; all you have to do is load up your favorite antivirus application, hit the “scan” button, and wait for the removal to occur. Other malware, unfortunately, can be rather difficult to get rid of. These guys hide in various areas of your system where they are hard to get at.
Luckily, there is a reasonably effective way to deal with these unwanted pests. In order to do so, you must begin by heading over to the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (often referred to as UBCD4Win) homepage. UBCD4Win is a bootable CD which comes packed with a whole host of free applications, several of which are designed to remove viruses and spyware. The benefit of UBCD4Win is that it runs off of a CD, not your infected hard drive. As a result, it can get in those hard to reach areas quite easily.
So how does one actually remove a virus with the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows? Well, after you have downloaded it, head over to the set up instructions and follow along as they guide you through the process of creating an ISO file and then burning that ISO file to a CD. Once this is accomplished you have to boot off of the CD and select “launch the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows”.
Within a minute or two you will be presented with a good old fashion Windows XP interface. At this point, if you would like to perform virus removal, load up Avira Antivir (a trusted, free antivirus application) and scan the C: drive. Meanwhile, if you would like to perform spyware removal, load up Super AntiSpyware (a trusted, free antispyware application) and scan the C: drive. That’s it!
It is important to remember that UBCD4Win is not a silver bullet; it will not fix every possible problem with your computer. What it will do, however, is destroy a lot of malicious code which is difficult to remove while your computer is running off of its hard drive. Additionally, it does a good job of letting you remove unwanted programs from a system which is virtually unusable due to slowness.
Keith hosts computer repair vancouver where he discusses a wide variety of technical, computer-related, topics including how to repair an infected computer.
Microsoft Security Essentials is a free anti-virus software from Microsoft. It runs in the background to protect your personal computer against malware, spyware, viruses as well as other malicious online threats.
Microsoft Security Essentials is completely free to all genuine Windows Vista and Windows 7 users, but available only for 32-bit Win XP. It’s a small download that provide whole lots of features.
Review of Microsoft Security Essentials Scanning and Performance
Microsoft Security Essentials performance in detecting and blocking malware was comparable to other commercial antivirus products with detection rate of 98% in our test. However it did very well in our proactive tests, which simulate how well a program detects new, unknown malware. In our test it caught exactly what NOD 32 caught and malware detection was actually better than AVG.
Microsoft Security Essentials performance in boot time and shut-down time was quite impressive. However, it was significantly slower at scanning compared to major security vendors.
MSE impressive boot time improvement : Boot time reduce by more than 70 seconds after replacing Avira with Microsoft Security Essentials. Boot time tracking using Soluto.
It ranks highly in performance and easy on system resources. The graphical user interface was remarkably neat and user friendly, and it comes pre-configured. Microsoft Security Essentials has one of the simplest GUIs we have seen for a computer security solution. It’s not obtrusive like many of the antivirus software currently on the market.
After the program is installed, the software will update itself automatically. Updates are published 3 times a day to Microsoft Update. It is always kept up to date so you can rest assured your computer is protected.
Free isn’t always good when you need a good quality product, but up to now Microsoft Security Essentials has proved otherwise. To summarize, MSE is highly recommended as a free antivirus program which will protect your pc. Microsoft Security Essentials can be download at http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/. Installation is painless and quick. This is a genuinely a good product and come highly recommended.
Published by Spyware, Adware and Computer Security News (www.spywarenews.org)
So what exactly is a trojan horse? A giant wooden horse made to fill with warriors who are set to jump out once they have breached the walls of an enemies city! No, not that kind of trojan horse.
A trojan horse is simply a computer program that claims to do one thing, but instead does damage when you execute it. These programs can come in any form. It could be a video game, an anti virus program, or even just a photo. They are set up to initiate once you have double clicked them. Trojans can only cause harm if you have executed them. They have no way to replicate themselves automatically.
Some people will exclaim that they have gotten a trojan horse from someone! But the reality is that if you have a trojan on your computer, it is because you have opened a file that included the trojan.
What Can A Trojan Horse Do?
A trojan can do anything from allowing a hacker to control every aspect of your computer. They can move your mouse before your eyes, or open your rom right in front of you as if you had done it yourself. They can also completely erase your hard drive, or implant more malicious information onto your computer. If you computer contains sensitive materials, a trojan will be your worst nightmare as anything saved to your hard drive will become available to the hacker who is using the trojan horse.
The best way to avoid a trojan horse is the same as avoiding a virus. Never open anything that hasn’t been virus scanned first. But it is important to also remember that not all trojans can be found through a virus scanner. Be sure to download a trojan cleaner and occasionally run it on your computer to be sure of the safety of your files and programs.
Odd as it mat sound, the computer virus is something specifically related to the information age. On one side of it the viruses can show us how vulnerable we are, as a properly generated and utilized virus can have devastating effects on the computer they are on. On the flip side of this they can also show us how intelligent and interconnected human beings have become.
Strange as it may sound, the computer virus is something of an Information Age marvel. On one hand, viruses show us how vulnerable we are — a properly engineered virus can have a devastating effect, disrupting productivity and doing billions of dollars in damages. On the other hand, they show us how sophisticated and interconnected human beings have become. So how does a computer virus work?
What is Computer Virus
A virus is a tiny piece of software that can piggyback itself into real programs. For example, a virus may attach itself to a spreadsheet program such a excel. Each time that spreadsheet is opened, the virus begins to run. It can also have the chance to reproduce itself by attaching itself to other programs.
One of the best way to avoid allowing a virus onto your computer is to make sure you run a virus program scanner on each and every item you download, before you open it. Once you have executed a program, its way too late.
Social networking sites have allowed us to stay in touch with our loved ones and even chat with celebrities if you get lucky once in a while. Many of you must have heard of the most used social networking site, Twitter. Many of you may even have accounts in Twitter, but did you know that your account and information is at grave risk. That’s right if you are careless your account can be easily hacked into.
Ways to protect yourself from Twitter virus and malware
- Don’t disclose too much: For example if a stranger comes up to you and asks you where you live, your most likely answer would be either the state name or just the city name. You wouldn’t even tell your locality name, it’s the same here don’t disclose your personal details to anyone here. When you don’t know someone keep far as possible. He/she might just be a hacker waiting to attack your account.
- Lose privacy: Similar to Face book, Twitter also has the same problem, you don’t have much privacy. Did you know when though you are free of malware and your friend has malware you too stand a chance of getting affected. This is exactly how hackers hack from one account to the other through our friends and family and use their accounts to gather your information.
- I would recommend you don’t put up too much of information of yourself on your account as that is the best way to reduce your chances in getting affected by malware.
- Avoid retweeting: Try to avoid retweeting as you need to always check a link before sending it. Usually this a very common way of getting spam attacks that depend on blind retweeting to gather more users into the scam.
- Don’t click on unknown links: This is especially for you guys. How many of you have fallen for this one. This is a very old method of laying a trap for you guys by posting a picture of a beautiful girl with a link below and you guys of course immediately click on that link only to get infected with malware. If at all you don’t know that person, then it is best to avoid their links or encouraging them to send messages.
So friends, I hope you can stay safe by following the above methods.
photo by flickr user laureninspace
Published by Spyware, Adware and Computer Security News (www.spywarenews.org)
Unfortunately for any computer user viruses and Spyware are a common problem. The worst part is that most people are not aware of some things that may install Spyware or other malicious items onto their computers. Most people wrongly assume that they have to download something or open themselves up to a vulnerability manually. This is not always true.
How Do I Keep Getting Spyware?
Actually, one of the main ways that hackers have found is the easiest to use to get PC users to execute their malicious software is through emails. All of those inspirational or chain emails can be the biggest source of problems for some users who do not even frequent sites that may contain Spyware or viruses.
All of those nice inspirational emails can have malicious coding embedded that may cause security vulnerabilities within your computer. Clicking links that you are unsure of inside emails is also a great way to install Spyware on your system. 
For new users this may be the biggest problems. Most people who regularly use computers for personal or business related activities are aware of the dangers of the internet and the possibility of getting Spyware of viruses. However, most think that in order to get them, you have to execute a program. This is entirely untrue.
Delete Those Emails Before You Open Them!
Whatever the title and whomever it has come from does not matter. Always keep in mind that others may not know the dangers of simple emails or links as well. The best way to deal with emails from unfamiliar sources or emails that contain inspirational or chain letter type messages is to delete them as soon as possible. Do not open them ever!
