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.

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.

A new type of spam focuses on consumers’ frustrations with high gas prices, according to McAfee Avert Labs.

The emails begin by complaining about the rising cost of gas and then direct the reader to a website, with the promise the “product” will save the user 70 cents per gallon. The spam also mentions this gas saver was highlighted on news channels and online videos.

Gasoline-related spam is still relatively new, however. McAfee stated that so far it makes up only 0.2 percent of all spam being circulated.

A new contest running at the DefCon hacker conference this year (held in Las Vegas in August) is already stirring up controversy. It will challenge hackers to design malware that can’t be detected by anti-virus programs such as ones offered by Symantec and McAfee.

The contest is dubbed Race to Zero, which refers to zero-day exploits — malware that is so new that protection against it doesn’t exist yet.

Contestants aren’t being asked to create new viruses but to modify existing ones to see if the anti-virus programs can catch them.

The contest has been criticized by anti-virus vendors for encouraging hackers to thwart their products and teach virus writers new tricks. But the contest organizers say it’s actually a test to show how poorly anti-virus products work and to demonstrate that not all anti-virus shields are equal.

“Poorly performing antivirus vendors should be called out,” say the contest organizers on their web site.

“The majority of the signature-based antivirus products can be easily circumvented with a minimal amount of effort,” they write.

Race to Zero

source:blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/hacker-challeng.html

Yahoo and McAfee announced a partnership Tuesday under which potentially unsafe Web sites appearing in Yahoo search results will be flagged as risky.

The deal, an exclusive for Yahoo, uses McAfee SiteAdvisor technology to label a variety of potentially dangerous Web sites with red warning text and links to McAfee information about what risks the site poses. Among the triggers for a red warning message are sites that host spyware, adware, or virus-infected downloads; sites that have links to other Web sites with dangerous material; and sites that have a track record of harvesting e-mail addresses later used to send spam, the companies said

The companies declined to reveal the financial terms of the partnership.

The deal represents the latest attempt by Sunnyvale-based Yahoo to lure more search requests, snap out of its recent financial funk and steal advertising dollars from search leader Google Inc. as it tries to justify its rebuff of Microsoft Corp.’s $47.5 billion takeover bid.

Yahoo shares fell 15 percent Monday after Microsoft pulled out of merger talks over the weekend.

The deal gives Santa Clara-based McAfee a way to expose more Internet users to its security software and tempt them to upgrade to premium versions.

McAfee also benefits from teaming with Yahoo because it can use Yahoo’s search data to identify sites to examine for security holes and include within its products, McAfee’s Dowling said.

The McAfee technology being used on Yahoo’s site is a stripped-down version of McAfee’s full SiteAdvisor technology that also is available for free directly from McAfee. It uses red, yellow and green icons to label safe and harmful sites. A premium version adds other features.

Billions of sites have harmful content, and the criminal hackers behind them try relentlessly to manipulate search rankings to boost their links and ensnare more victims.

Yahoo’s Garg said the company was doing experiments to identify malicious sites and bar them from search results.

source:news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_hi_te/yahoo_mcafee

Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading their annoying products: fake MP3 files.

On Tuesday, security vendor McAfee reported that it’s seen a huge spike in fake MP3 files spreading on peer-to-peer networks. Although the files have names that make them look like audio recordings, they’re really Trojan horse programs that try to install a shoddy media player and adware on your computer, said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee.

“Once you run it, there is no content. You’re taken to this site to install this player which you don’t really need,” he said.

Fake file names include: preview-t-3545425-changing times earth wind .mp3 and t-3545425-just got lucky.mp3. Users are first asked to OK an end-user license agreement before the Trojan installs two programs, Mirar and NetNucleus, on their PCs.

Ironically, while the Mirar software tells users that it doesn’t display popups, NetNucleus does deliver popup ads, so users who do not realize that they are installing two programs might feel tricked, Schmugar said. “You have a Window telling you that there are no popups and right behind it is a popup.”

Although McAfee has seen some nasty software disguising itself as media files in the past, it has never seen anything on this scale, Schmugar said. Over the past 24 hours, nearly a third of the McAfee customers who reported data back to the security company have detected these files, he said.

In the past few days McAfee has spotted the files on more than 360,000 users’ desktops.

Tags: McAfee, Adware, Trojan

source:www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145567/trojan_adware_hiding_in_mp3s_mcafee_says.html

There are many programs out there that can help you with Spy ware and Mal ware protection.

Some of the best programs to us are as follows;

The Cleaner Trojan checker For Trojan checker.
Male-ware Protection – http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php
AVG – Offers free virus protection for your pc without causing vulnerabilities

Many other are available but be sure you get them from reputable services. All information secured on hard drives makes some people thing they are secure. They are NOT if they do not follow the simple instructions to avoid opening up our computer to malicious attacks.