Dave's Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

Heads up Norton users!  A headline hit the news last night about the confirmed leak of source code for the popular Norton Antivirus software by Symantec.  You can read the articles for yourself here and here.

For those who aren’t tech savvy, the word “source code” refers to the so-to-speak “recipe” for the development/creation of a program.  It is literally the instructions that are more or less written by computer programmers.  This kind of information is proprietary and is often a trade secret, much like the coveted ingredients list for Coca Cola or my moms apple pie.  If one were able to obtain such information, say a competator or the creators of compuer viruses, one might use this information to one-up the software or, more importantly, exploit design flaws to circumvent the software.  In short this means it is quite likely there will be a new breed of viruses on the horizon that will be capable of outsmarting Norton, rendering it useless and crippled.

Symantec has been trying to downplay the severity of this breach by stressing the age of the code, stating that the origin is a version of their software that dates back to 2006, or so we’ve been told thus far.  This is an attempt to defuse the concern by implying that their latest software is far different at its core and that there won’t be very much that is useful to virus writers because they still don’t have their hands on the latest blueprints.  But the reality of the situation is far less peachy than they would like to paint it.  In the world of computer programming software and even entire operating systems will retain a fair chunk of old code from previous versions simply because, well, it’s already been written and if it “works” then there’s little need to rewrite it from scratch.  I’m not saying source code is never rewritten, revised or updated from time to time, but when it comes to large programs such as Norton Antivirus that’s made up of tens of thousands of lines of code it could easily be argued that there is likely a good percentage of old code that has been retained for years without ever being modified.  It would be like having a castle or fortress that is under continuous construction and maintenance.  You can’t afford to tear the whole thing down every year and rebuild it from scratch, so instead what you do is build around and upon the existing structure and make repairs to the parts that need repairing the most.  This means that likely most of the fundamental structure is retained and knowledge of the construction of such a structure could be used by an enemy to find a previously unnoticed vulnerability.

In the interest of full disclosure I will have to admit that Norton hasn’t been on my list of recommended software since the late 90s when it was practically the only anti-virus software available.  It’s early bird status was followed by years of successful marketing and advertising, which lead to its continuous wide spread recognition of the software/brand name, giving the impression to novice computer users that Norton really is the best thing out there.  ”How could it not be good when its so popular?” they might ask themselves.

I am here to tell you that the number one problem I fix for people in this line of work is virus removal and far too often I see systems that are running Norton that have become utterly trashed by multiple viruses while Norton gives inaccurate scan results, claiming the system is clean and virus free.  This is particularly irksome to me because when you consider the wide spread saturation of their software along with the monetary cost to the users for the renewal every year you would have to expect the company to use their position and resources to everyones benefit.  Despite its wide spread usage and price tag it fails to survey new viruses and develop new definitions for capturing and stopping them in an effective manner and so many users never seem to get their moneys worth.  I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and accept the fact that there is no such thing as a “perfect” antivirus software, but you should expect to be given better treatment and results if you’re paying upwards of $70 a year for protection, especially when there are free alternatives out there that have been statistically shown to do a comparatively better job.  And to think these kinds of problems existed before some of their source code leaked.  Now that some source code has leaked and the potential for new viruses to be developed to exploit Norton itself are likely right around the corner I feel obligated to suggest that people avoid using it all together.  No amount of marketing or PR can change the consensus of most IT professionals who can see past all the BS and to me this incident is more than just one more nail in the coffin.

So what do I recommend instead of Norton?  I mentioned that there is “no such thing as a perfect antivirus” but there are alternatives that hold a higher reputation than Norton that cost a fraction of what Norton costs or even nothing at all.  In past blog entries I’ve mentioned Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes and Combofix and still recommend them, so here’s a little information about them.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus solution that Microsoft itself actually produces and it’s quite popular in the IT community right now for a couple of reasons.  I already mentioned that its free but it is also effective and not as resource intensive as other software.  There’s also a new stand-alone bootable version of it that’s going through public beta testing right now which is handy to have for particularly difficult viruses.  You can read more about it here.  Be aware that there has, in the past, been a rogue malware impostor simply called “Security Essentials 2010/2011/2012″ which people have confused with the real deal, falling victim to a trap.  You can download the real deal from here.

Along side MSE I also recommend users purchase the full copy of Malwarebytes for the one time payment of $25.  Some of the handy features it has is an active connection monitor which will automatically block your computer from attempting to connect to known malicious web servers.  It also features an active process monitor like a traditional antivirus and will help prevent a good number of rogue malware type software from infecting your system.  There is a free version of this available but its active monitoring features are disabled. I’ve been using it in the field for over 2 years now and it has worked incredibly well for helping clean systems that had already become infected.  You can read more about it here and download/purchase it from here.

Finally a tool I use quite often to help clean systems that have already become infected is a program called Combofix, which is free.  This isn’t so much a traditional antivirus that runs in the background as it is a stand-alone utility for scanning a system after it has become infected.  It is regularly updated so it’s best to not bother downloading and using it until you actually have to.  You can read more about it here and download it from here.

In conclusion I strongly advise my clients to not use Norton Antivirus because it’s one of the most over-hyped, over-priced products out there right now and with the news of parts of its source code being leaked it only stands to become an even less effective product that will do less to protect you than other cheaper alternatives out there.

Speaking of alternatives, there is always the option of picking an alternative operating system such as Linux.

Linux is a free open-source OS that comes in many flavors.  We are already seeing Android being adopted by smartphone and tablet users like crazy and it is just one example of a Linux based OS that is taking the world by storm.  But for desktop and laptop users there remains a need for a full fledged desktop OS and there are many out there to choose from.  My personal favorite is Ubuntu Linux which you can check out at ubuntu.com.  It’s not for everyone but I can easily say that it is a very ideal choice for the average user.  Keep an eye out for future posts; I intend to record a new introductory video for Ubuntu 12.04 when it is released this coming April.

Update, March 18 2012:  I wanted to add the names of two more utilities I’ve found to work very well for some specific rootkits.  The names of the two programs are:

• Kaspersky TDSSKiller
• Avast Anti-Rootkit

I don’t write blogs much these days but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing blogs the golden rule is to make them useful and valuable to people.  As a sort of philanthropic gesture I am now going to reveal a few tricks I use in the field when repairing systems that have already become infected with viruses or malware.  Perhaps these tips will save you some money during these dark economic times.  I can’t promise that these tips will work for you but for the DIY user who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty, it might prove to be very useful.  So lets get right to it:

Phase 1:  Safe Mode (with networking?)

Almost every version of Windows out there (from Windows 95 all the way up to the most recent Windows 7) have a hidden menu you can access at boot that gives you access to a diagnostic profile called Safe Mode.  Safe Mode is a sort of back door mode into Windows that loads the absolute (or nearly) bare minimum of device drivers and background services.  It’s sort of a bare bones environment that is suitable to start your repair from primarily because most viruses aren’t auto-started by the system in this mode, but it’s not perfect.  More on that in a moment.

To access Safe Mode you need to press the F8 key on your keyboard at a VERY specific time.  Typically when you turn your computer on you’ll see a screen that either has the logo of the manufacture of the PC or perhaps some generic startup relating to your BIOS.  At some point that all goes away, your screen will be black for about 3 seconds, and then Windows will proceed to boot with the little scroll bar loading away.  It’s during (or just before) that 3 second window of blackness that you need to start tapping the F8 key.  If done correctly, you’ll be presented with a menu that looks like this:

You’ll use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move the highlighting selector bar.  Typically I will select Safe Mode With Networking, as this allows me to access the Internet and download utilities as well as give these utilities access to definition updates for itself later.

After you select Safe Mode With Networking and press Enter your screen will be bombarded with a slathering of strange and mysterious words…

Don’t worry, this is normal.  (Note: If instead of this screen above you get another menu asking what version of Windows you want to boot, just press Enter again).

Eventually you will get to the familiar blue colored user login screen and you might see an account called Administrator shown there that you’ve never seen before.  If you do, go ahead and select it to log in as “Administrator”.  Otherwise, select your own user name.

Once you’re logged in you have a few options you can take.  The safest way to get started is to actually bring a copy of your utility software with you on a thumb drive or CD to install it from, instead of downloading via a web browser.  The reason it’s not a good idea to try and download via a web browser is because a lot of viruses tend to wrap themselves around a browser’s EXE file so that when the browser starts, so does the virus.  This could potentially happen with a lot of other software so it’s best to try and resist the temptation to run any programs except for the cleaning utilities we’re about to install.

Phase 2:  Cleaning

There are only three pieces of software I typically use with great success in the field for removing viruses and malware.  They are:

• Malwarebytes
• Combofix
• Microsoft Security Essentials

All of the above are free with the exception of Malwarebytes, which functions with all its features on a 30 day trial when you first install it (note that you will see an error message appear when you tell it to start the trial while in Safe Mode; this is normal and you can ignore the error by clicking the OK button when it appears).  To keep the full version running you have to buy it for the low one-time payment of $25 and I strongly recommend it.  Apart from these three the only other tool I use is Google, which I’ll use to lookup exact phrases found within suspicious malware to see if I can find other people talking about that particular virus somewhere online and hopeful discover what unique thing they did to remove it.  Fair warning:  Your mileage may vary.

I typically start by installing Malwarebytes first (however I have had one experience where I wasn’t able to do this until after I ran Combofix so you might need to flip the order of these two tasks), applying the most recent update for it and then running a full scan, removing all infected objects it finds.  A typical scan can take around a half hour to do.  When it’s finished, you just need to click the “Show Results” button and then make sure the results listed all have check marks next to them and then click “Remove Selected” in the bottom left.  If an object doesn’t have a check mark when you first view the results it means Malwarebytes thinks it could be a false-positive result.  Use your best judgment and google to determine if either the file is malicious and/or if the file is a necessary part that can be removed without grief.  A reboot will likely be required when it is finished.  Be ready to hit F8 again when you do this so you can come back into Safe Mode and continue your work.

One thing I’ll often do while I’m waiting for a Malwarebytes scan to complete is take a look at the MS Config utility and see what items are enabled to auto-start when you boot into the system.  To access this, click Start, then click Run (or just click into the search box if you’re using Windows 7) and type in “msconfig” without the quotes into the box and click OK.  Then click the Startup tab at the top.

In this startup list are programs that are told to run right away when you first log into your system.  Almost all of these items are non-essential and to be on the safest side you could probably get away with unchecking all of these items, but that’s usually overkill and might rob you of some convenient feature you’d like to have.  Look carefully down the list for items that have empty path names, or very bizarre characters in their name… I have to admit that at this point experience with this stuff comes in to play.  If you don’t know what something is you could look it up by name with google on a separate computer before deciding to uncheck it  Alternatively, you could use the uncheck-all-the-things strategy and then go back later to add check marks back into the few items you know you need enabled.  You can also check out the Services tab which is to the left of the Startup tab, check the box that says “Hide all Microsoft items” and then use the same judgment to decide if there are third-party services running in the background that don’t need to be.  Google is your friend here for helping to determine if a service is useful or not.

Another thing I’ll do while waiting for a scan to complete is open the Add/Remove Program (Programs & Features) applet from the Control Panel to view all the software that’s been installed on the system.  I target toolbars of any kind first, next by software that is unfamiliar to the user.  Again, google is a useful reference here because you don’t want to remove something that’s known to not be malicious.

The next step is to run Combofix which you can find a tutorial about by clicking here.  It is pretty strait forward:  double-click on the combofix.exe file that you downloaded and follow the on screen instructions.  It’s own scan will also take about 30 minutes or so but it is very sensitive so once you kick it off, don’t touch the computer until its finished.   There is almost no interaction required with the software and it will automatically remove anything malicious it finds, producing a log with a lot of interesting jargon at the end that you can forward on to an expert for further analysis if you’d like.

After all this I’ll typically reboot the system and let it boot normally and then install Microsoft Security Essentials, running a full scan with it right after and checking to make sure the trial mode has been enabled on Malwarebytes.

If all of the above didn’t work, something I’ll try next is to reboot back into safe mode and use the control panel to create a new user account, then log off and log back in under that new account and repeat all the same steps above.  The reason this might help is because viruses tend to damage registry entries for accounts that existed when it found and infected the system.  Because we’re creating a new account in an environment that hopefully didn’t auto-launch the virus, we can then create a fresh account with it’s own default settings and preferences that hopefully won’t be manipulated by the virus.  This kind of problem could also be reversed using the System Restore utility but I’ve found that a lot of times (not always) I try to use this utility none of the restore points are any good.  I wouldn’t be surprised if previous restore points are destroyed by certain viruses making it even more difficult to undo the damage done.  In situations like that I’ve occasionally just created a new user account and migrated all the important user data (documents, etc.) from the old account to the new account, deleting the old one in the end because it’s irreversibly broken.

One last tip I’ve run across in a training video for a competitor of mine who will remain unnamed is to shut the system off by force instead of doing a soft reboot during this cleaning process.  In other words, hold the power button down for 5 seconds and then turn the computer back on after 20 seconds.  The reasoning behind this is that there are a few viruses out there that alter the shutdown script of events that take place during an ordinary shutdown and one of the events it injects into the script is to reinstall the virus during shutdown from a rogue location, as a Plan B so even if the live version of the virus is caught and removed it might be able to recreate the file from an encrypted copy of itself elsewhere.  If you decide to do this my only advice would be to backup the entire hard drive before doing so.  It’s technically dangerous… but probably not THAT dangerous… it’s best to remain on the safe side and not use shortcuts.

Finally a word about a couple of common viruses in particular I’ve run into in the last year:

A few of these viruses going around exhibit the symptom of making all your files and shortcut icons on the desktop vanish.  This is often done with a combination of changing the file attributes to enable the hidden flag, or by moving the files to a hidden location.  It is sometimes also conjoined with malware that tries to frighten you into thinking your hard drive is on the verge of failure, or at the least, claims to be antivirus software itself.  The goal of all such attempts is to get you to give up your credit card number.  Please don’t.

I’ve had great success removing the virus that causes these files to go missing but after it’s been removed it’s not always so easy to reverse the damage and restore the missing icons.  Fortunately there is one program out there that, for the most part, has been able to do this for me very simply and it’s simply called “Unhide”.  Use this program after going through all the above steps to be sure you’ve removed traces of the virus and hopefully it will get all of your stuff back for you.  You can download Unhide from here.

One other common symptom I’ve seen certain viruses exhibit is hijacking certain registry entries to alter file associations, specifically one which makes your computer forget what to run EXE files with, asking instead what program you’d like to open another program with.  I have found that in Windows 7 one trick of working around this is to right-click on a program shortcut and then click Run as Administrator.  This uses a separate registry association which hopefully has not been affected by the virus.  Using this Right-Click>Run as Administrator trick you should be able to run your scanning utilities like Malwarebytes and Combofix from within Safe Mode.

Phase 3: Prevention

Now that we know how much of a pain these kinds of viruses can cause we should talk a little about where they come from and the different ways they can end up on your computer.  I wrote a much longer blog about this topic which you can read here.  Basically it boils down to this:

• Make sure you install all available software updates for Windows itself as well as 3rd party software and plugins like Adobe Flash, Acrobat and Java (among others).  Updates are your friend and help to patch recently discovered security vulnerabilities.
• Pay attention to links people send you in emails.  It’s quite possible their email account has had its password stolen and is being used by a robot to send spam email with links to malicious websites out to everyone in their address book.  Warn your friends if you suspect their account has been compromised and suggest they change their email accounts password before following the steps above to attempt to remove a potential infection.
• Use good anti-virus software.  As recommended above, I prefer MSE and Malwarebytes.  Combofix is only to be used as an emergency utility; it doesn’t have a real-time monitoring feature.
• Consider using a software firewall to block unwanted inbound traffic and unexpected outbound traffic.  Zone Alarm Free is an excellent choice for this.
• Use an ad-blocking plugin to further reduce the chances of a virus sneaking in through a flash-based advertisement.  Ad-Block for Firefox is a great option.  You can also get it for Google Chrome from here.
• Along with these plugins, consider using a better browser.  Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have both become superior to Internet Explorer, especially in terms of security.
• Avoid installing “toolbars” for your browser.  If you install one by accident, disable it in your browser or better yet uninstall it via your control panel.
• Avoid using P2P file-sharing software like Frostwire or MP3Rocket.  These methods of file sharing do not have any form of user moderation and anybody can wrap a virus inside a file then name it something innocent/sensational looking to trick people into downloading it and installing a virus.
• Consider adding a parental filter to your computer; you don’t need kids for this.  Having a web filter like K9 Web Protection can be helpful to block your computer from accidentally trying to connect with a known malicious server.
• Lastly, though this is too extreme for most people:  Consider switching to Linux on your desktop.  Linux is free, open-source and is even more secure than MacOS.  Seriously.

I hope this advice has been helpful.  Please leave comments or suggestions about other tips and tricks you use to help remove malicious software in the comments section below!

I have encountered a good variety of computer problems this year, many of them classic textbook cases. Dead DVD burners that needed to be replaced; computers running slowly because they really needed a RAM upgrade; hard drives needing to be replaced with larger ones; networks with printers needing to be setup so multiple computers can send jobs to it…. these are the kinds of problems that we were taught how to resolve in school, primarily because they  were easy to recreate/simulate for lab assignments.  I remember the fun we had when students were split into pairs and told to “test” each other by breaking a system and not telling the other person HOW they broke it, as a challenge to see if they catch all the hidden problems.  Wanna make a computer run slow?  Pull a stick of RAM out of it, slightly.  Wanna make a network printer stop working?  Change its IP address.  Wanna stump someone with no video on the monitor?  Just turn the contrast/brightness all the way down to see if they can figure it out.  The goal was to reinforce the premises that you should never, ever dismiss the lowest common denominator when trying to think of different  diagnostics and best case solutions for a problem.  Even something as simple as “is it plugged in?” should never be assumed to have been checked until you’ve done it yourself.  In networking, you would say “start with the physical layer, and work your way up to the higher levels until you actually reach the application.”

These problems don’t strike me as novel or very interesting, mostly because you expect to see them occur at SOME point in time and at random.  Electronics wear out, lightning can strike at any moment, dust buildup shorts something out or jams a cooling fan; these things just happen from time to time.  But there was one issue I saw this year that really stood out as occurring more frequently than any other problem by far.  A problem  that seemed to happen so suddenly, so widely that you could almost call it “trend setting”.  So I wanted to take a look back and talk a bit about a problem I’ve seen more often than anything else this year:

“Warning:  You’re infected!  Click here now!”

The most prominent problem I saw this year, more than any other problem I got calls about, were from people saying they had gotten alerts popping up on their system similar to the one pictured above.  Typically you would be intimidated by a popup that said your system had a LOT of viruses on it and to click on various buttons/links to remove them.  Unfortunately it was all a ruse as these alerts were themselves part of a virus masquerading around as anti-virus software, taking computers hostage.   Their names and appearance had some variation but most of their tactics were the same:

• Prevent user from opening any other applications (including Task Manager)
• If you were able to open a web browser, any page you tried to visit would be replaced with a page that would fear-monger the user even further
• Change the browser proxy settings to point to a non-existent server and in doing so prevent the user from accessing the Internet for downloading removal tools
• Annoy the user with never-ending, obnoxious pop-ups that would invite the user to pay the developers of the fake anti-virus software ransom money
• Replicate itself across multiple, random locations on the hard drive, making it more difficult to remove manually

I began to get a lot of phone calls for this exact type of issue during the middle of the summer this year, and of course everyone wanted to know how their computer came to get this sort of junk software on their machine in the first place.  Along those lines:  Where do viruses come from, how could one have gotten on my computer and WHY on earth would someone create such an evil thing in the first place?

I don’t have the monetary resources to conduct an “official” study (and as such you should classify everything here to be anecdotal), so the next best thing I can do is look for things that were in common between PCs that fell victim to the same infection at about the same time.  The one thing that stood out the most to me was that Adobe Flash, Adobe Acrobat and/or Java were out of date and needed updates to be installed.

In the year 2010, Adobe has had to make multiple announcements about zero-day exploits found in their Flash plugin that could allow Flash to do things like crash a computer or to take control of it (e.g., facilitate the installation of a malicious payload or virus).

Just what is Flash, anyway?  Flash is a plugin for web browsers that has been a mainstay in webpages for over a decade.  Youtube videos, for example, are played within Flash.  Most advertisements you see on the web use Flash to animate video, elements, buttons, letters, etc.  Some websites are made entirely in Flash.  In the early days Flash was designed as an alternative to animated gif images and cartoon-like animations because for some uses it could actually conserve bandwidth because instead of pixels and color pallets taking up file space, you would instead be working with vectors (think connect-the-dots to create a shape of something, like a stick-figure man, and move the dots/vertices to animate it).  An awesome example of cartoon flash animation using very little bandwidth is www.homestarrunner.com (a favorite cartoon series I used to follow in the old days).  Over time Flash has evolved into quite a feature rich plugin that many have attempted to clone and dethrone, but all attempts have failed (so far).

In any case, as a result of being more efficient than animated bitmaps and saving web hosts money on bandwidth and faster loading times while increasing the “eye-candy factor” during the days of dial-up, Flash became a preferred/common means of deploying advertisements on the web, and eventually advertising itself became so big that there are now companies that do nothing but produce and host Flash-based advertisements for other websites. What this means is that many websites do not actually host/serve the advertisements that you see on their website, as they have offset the bandwidth requirements for this function to third party companies.  Unfortunately, because advertising is a big deal online, it raises the bounty and incentive a malicious hacker might have to penetrate the advertising servers and replace clean advertisements with infected versions that would download and install Malware all by itself, taking advantage of security exploits in the plugin that have not been patched by the user.  This has been going on for at least the last 4 years or more and it’s a phenomenon knows as “Malvertising”.

So what are some ways to prevent this type of thing from affecting you?

1. Make sure you apply updates for all software on your computer when presented with the opportunity

If you see an alert like the one pictured above, address it immediately.  Far too often I see users just minimize the window or click “Later” and forget about it for the rest of the session.  The same thing goes for Windows updates, Adobe updates and generally speaking any updates for software that you use on a regular basis.  Updates happen because security vulnerabilities are found and patched, or slight tweaks resulted in an increase of the programs performance, or because they are adding a new cool feature.  Whatever the case may be, software updates are your friend and you should welcome them without hesitation.  If you are asked to update a piece of software you have never heard of before,  just type the name of that software into Google.  With just 30 seconds of reading you should be able to determine if the program that has an update pending is legit or malicious.

2.  Use Anti-Virus software that is backed by a good reputation, not just hype and marketing

The two most common anti-virus programs I’ve encountered  on computers THAT WERE ALREADY INFECTED has either been Norton or McAfee; both have never seemed to live up to their hype or justify the sponsorship of PC manufactures and Internet Service Providers.  Norton in particular spends gobs of money on absurd advertisements about how you should protect your oscillating fan from David Hasselhoff or saving your unicorn from Dolf Lundgren.  The use of silly metaphors in them are meant to parody the fact that most people don’t understand viruses anymore than they understand Dolf scorching My Little Pony with a flame thrower, purely for illustrative purposes of course.  Lets dumb it down so much that people will say, “This is so dumb, it’s smart (advertising).”  Now we know why a copy of their software costs around $60 or $70 per year…

The sad truth about anti-virus software is that NONE OF THEM are perfect or necessarily worth their weight in dollars, simply because virus programmers have the upper hand.  If a hacker discovers a vulnerability that no one else has discovered yet, he may just keep it in his “stash” for use later.  OR, he might sell that knowledge to the Russian mafia or any number of other interested parties who have their own stash and secret agendas.  It is suspected the Stuxnet worm that ran rampant through Iran earlier this year was the product of a government agency, due to the sheer amount of zero-day exploits it contained for propagating itself, along with its overall sophistication and extremely specific targeting.

Was it a coincidence that days after Adobe announced the discovery of a zero-day exploit in their Flash and Acrobat Reader software in early June that a lot of people started to call me for the exact same Malware problem?  It’s quite likely the vandalism on advertising servers was timed to correspond with these vulnerabilities to maximize exposure.  It takes Adobe around 2 weeks to release patches for vulnerabilities like this so there is a window of time users are exposed and at risk, and this window of time extends out further if you avoid applying updates.

Despite this sad and depressing fact, you’ll be happy to know that many anti-virus programs do provide generous protections that you cannot otherwise get without them.  There are two programs I recommend everyone check out:

• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Malwarebytes

Microsoft Security Essentials is produced by Microsoft itself and is a free program you can install on your system.  It will actively monitor your computers activity and help prevent virus infection.  I encounter network security professionals in web forums here and there and most of them have really begun to sing praise for this program, because of it’s small footprint and high level of virus detection and removal.  Malwarebytes is another program that comes in a free form (though there is a paid version that automates all of it’s functions so you don’t have to do manual scans and updates with it).  Malwarebytes has been an absolute life saver for me this year as it was able to effectively cure about 8 out of 10 PCs of all their woes with one scan.

There are many other commercial (pay) anti-virus programs out there that are good, such as AVG, Avira Anti-Virus, Avast, etc., but I don’t have the time or resources to review all that are available.  While you might be able to find other websites out there that post “comprehensive reviews” of this type of software, it should not surprise you that sometimes these articles are just advertisements for commercial anti-virus software dressed up to look legit and non-partisan.  In my opinion, the best reviews for these things come from individual users and a great place to find reviews for antivirus software is Amazon.com.  They sell some anti-virus software and each of them have their own collection of user reviews that are worth reading over if you decide you want spend money on extra protection not offered by free solutions.

3.  Install A Software Firewall Solution

If your computer is directly connected to the Internet (and does not pass through a router of any kind) then you are putting your computer on the front line and you should protect it with some armor if you want to stand a chance in the wild jungle that is the Internet.  Firewalls prevent unwanted network traffic from passing between your computer and the Internet.  In the same way Flash has it’s own flaws and vulnerabilities from time to time, so too does Windows itself and many vulnerabilities can be exploited with nothing more than a network connection.  Having a firewall in place helps eliminate this possibility.  A firewall can also prevent rogue software that is already on your system from “phoning home, contacting the mother ship” to update itself or otherwise expose your personal data to would be data thieves..  It’s not anti-virus software, but it does add a critical layer of protection.  Windows itself comes with a firewall built in but it’s not as feature rich as some third-party applications out there.  The most popular free firewall that I know of Zone Alarm Free.

4.  Use a proper Ad Blocking browser extension

One of the great features of Zone Alarm Free is the ability to let it block advertisements for you, although its not very smart about it as it basically blocks all gifs or flash content embedded in a website.  This can break a lot of websites that have legit uses for Flash, like Youtube.  So you may want to look into a more proper ad-blocking plugin/add-on/extension for your browser.  A great one for Firefox is called Adblock Plus.

5.  Use a safe web browser

Recently I stumbled across a funny description of Internet Explorer:  “It’s a great tool for downloading Firefox or Google Chrome.”  And it’s the truth.  Internet Explorer has struggled to achieve a respectable reputation among security experts as being a secure browser, when compared to others that compete against it.  Among them are:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Opera

These are all very capable browsers that have a great reputation for handling security and also have shown impressive turnaround when vulnerabilities are discovered.  I would highly recommend you download and install one of the above browsers and start to use it instead of Internet Explorer.

6.  Avoid And Uninstall Web Browser “Toolbars”

The above image is an exaggeration of a point I would like to drill home:  Toolbars are 99% junk and often facilitate no additional functionality than a web browser already has built into itself.  Pop-up blocking and search bars are standard in all modern web browsers, for example.  Many times I have seen toolbars for “MyWebSearch” on computers that happened to be infected with a virus.  I can’t necessarily say there is a causal connection between that particular toolbar and an increase in exposure to malicious software, but its fair to suspect it because if you search for “mywebsearch” on google, every single link (except the first one) goes to instructions for how to remove it.  It’s clear that NOBODY wants this toolbar, and the same could easily be said for most toolbars.  Get rid of them, please!

The easiest way to remove most of these is to use the Add/Remove Software applet in your control panel (In Windows Vista/7, it’s called “Programs and Features”).  If this fails to work then you can often find instructions for manual removal by searching for them with Google.

7.  Avoid P2P Filesharing Programs

Limewire is dead, but the way it worked will live on in other programs like it.  The way Limewire worked mostly relied on you connecting to other peers like yourself and the mesh collective would commence to pass files back and forth in a decentralized fashion.  The problem for Limewire is that it wasn’t entirely decentralized, which is why they were able to shut it down like they did Napster several years ago.  But still, the primary way it worked was by letting anybody share pretty much ANYTHING they wanted, without any real fear if they did something like disguise a virus as a popular new song by some teen-pop musician and share it out to the world as a “joke.”  Using software like this is your call and any legal considerations involved weighs entirely on you.  If you do decide to use file sharing software of this nature, make sure you police all your downloads to be sure you haven’t downloaded a Trojan horse.

8.  Consider Adding Parental Controls To Your PC

Not everybody reading this (in fact, few people reading this) would be willing to walk forward and admit to visiting porn websites online, but such websites make up a large chunk of the web and due to the rogue nature of some of them you are more likely to find ads, script code laced with viruses or strait up automatic downloads for executable binaries with names like “Video.exe” that can lead to your computer being infected.  It’s quite plausible that you might even visit one of these sites “TOTALLY BY ACCIDENT!!!”  So one thing you might consider using is a parental control blocking application that filters out web addresses and reduces the chance of you visiting one by accident or otherwise.  A robust, free parental control program worth trying is K9 Web Protection.

9. Consider Using Linux For Internet Stuff

It would be hard for me to write all of the above out without making a passing mention of using a different operating system, at least part of the time.  I realize not many users are interested in making a big switch from one OS to another, but it is very easy to at least get your feet wet with a Live CD.  In the case of Ubuntu Linux you can boot the entire OS from a CD without making any changes to your computer.  It’s like playing a demo for a video game before deciding to install the full copy, for free.  Instructions for downloading, burning and booting are right on Ubuntu’s website so if you’re even SLIGHTLY tech savvy you may find you enjoy working in Ubuntu more than you do Windows and feel relief from not having to worry about viruses or malware infecting your system.

Conclusion

As I mentioned before, this Malvertising problem is not new but the spike in its frequency of occurrence this year was interesting to me.  It wouldn’t be far out to predict another wave of infections like this striking again, but with the above advice and your increased awareness of the possibility of being infected in such a way should help to drastically reduce the chances of you falling victim to something like this.

So about 90 seconds ago I learned about this website and knew I had to write a quick blog about it.  The site is called Ninite Easy PC Setup.  This is a website that allows you to download multiple popular Windows applications, from web browsers to anti-virus software, and install them all at once!!  This is a HUGE, HUGE time saver.

You look through their selection of software, check off the programs you want and it will create a custom bundle from your selection and wrap it all into one easy install package for you to download.  When you run the installer, it installs all the apps, one by one, automatically without user intervention and without any spam “extras” that might come along with some of them (like browser toolbars that do more harm than good).

Check it out at www.ninite.com

I came across an article in Network World magazine that goes over five common Internet scams and thought this needed to be shared with everybody.  Please click here to read the article.

For several months I’ve had a server with a monitor, keyboard and mouse  plus a wireless router cluttering the back side of the livingroom in my home and decided to migrate this stuff into a room that’s at the far end of the house (“far” end meaning “further away from where my computer is, aka the cave).  So the only thing left in the living room was a cable modem which now connects to a 25 foot long Ethernet cable that leads to the router in the next room.

The drawback I knew I’d probably run into with this is the good chance that my wireless network connection would nearly be crippled.  I don’t have a big house, but I was going to be adding a couple more walls in between my computer and the router.

Now, I don’t go around talking too much about playing video games, but lately I’ve been on a streak of Left 4 Dead 2 because my best friend Jordan asked me to get it so we could play together online.  Games like that demand the best of connections that you can muster, and adding another gap of lag between myself and those game servers got me worried.  I haven’t yet tried to do multiplay since the move, but did notice that my wifi said that my signal was now “Very Low”.

So I pulled out my new Nexus One cell phone with Android Linux on it and fired on an app I got from the market for free called Wifi Analyser.  It kind of looks like this:

Above is just an example image I found with Google. What this program will show you is a line graph that displays the radio frequency usage of nearby wireless networks.  You see, wireless networks are kind of like walkie-talkies.  If some kid in your neighborhood is using the same radio frequency as you, your signals will obviously overlap and interfere with each other.  This app is made to quickly show you what frequency ranges are the most used in your immediate vicinity.  In my case I had quite a lot of overlap.  So I logged into my router, changed the wireless channel from 6 to 11 and that made a world of difference.  Windows says my signal is “Very good” now.

If you don’t know how to log into your router a good website to consult about this is portforward.com.  This site is intended to be used as an interactive guide that shows you how to login to your router and change your port forwarding configuration.  So the only part you need to pay attention to is the first half that shows you how to access your routers configuration settings.  The last half can be tossed aside.  Router configuration is a lot like browsing a website that has different check boxes, fly-outs and text fields for you to manage.  Just click around until you find something that says “wireless” and look for a setting that pertains to the radio channel it’s using.  The default for most routers these days is 6, or sometimes “auto”.  If it’s auto, you can at least experiment with it to see if based on your observations there is a frequency range that is more open and less cluttered than one it’s currently using.  And if it doesn’t seem to help your performance any, the change can be reversed.

Every now and then I post questions on www.techguy.org when I’m having difficultly with something computer/networking related.  It was a good place to get your feet wet when aspiring to become a grade A guru and occasionally pull your hair out if you wanted to get into a civil debate with someone about politics.

Recently, I posted the following in their Networking forum:

I have a new Linksys/Cisco router WRT54G2 v.1 with the latest firmware installed. I currently use port forwarding for things like VNC and SSH into my home PC. However, every time I try to set a new rule (for both TCP and UDP) up for bittorrent, the bittorrent clients I try say the port is closed. I’m using an Ubuntu Linux system, and both Transmission and Deluge will say the ports I select are closed, even if I change the port numbers and do another test. So I’m just wondering if anyone has encountered anything like this before and might have an idea of what could be causing this problem.

The thread was alive for a matter of seconds before a moderator locked the thread and replied with the following:

Please read the rules. We will not help with P2P apps.

I was surprised to see this happen, and that’s probably because I use www.ubuntuforums.org more often than any other forum for technical assistance.  Linux people like me approach the controversial topic of bittorrent a little differently…  I decided to send the moderator a private message to let him know what I thought about his decision:

Sorry for violating the rules. However, I would argue that I did not ask a question pertaining to P2P applications at all but a question strictly about networking problems with a Linksys router. I should also remind you that bittorrent is a common protocol used for the transfer of free, non-copyrighted information spanning from GPL licensed open-source software to free music or movies released under the creative-commons license, which is becoming more popular. There is nothing inherently illegal about using bittorrent (the protocol), but it would seem the moderators of techguy.org hold a contrary consensus that I feel they should consider revising in recognition of the legitimate and legal uses of bittorrent.

The above comment and any replies received in any form will be posted publicly on my blog. Thank you for your time.

I got a reply fairly fast.  Here’s what it said:

We cannot and will not assist in the illegal downloading of software through P2P applications, and that includes any impediments offered by networking components to such downloading. Any legal uses of such software are few and will unfortunately need to be included in this prohibition.

The policy has been in place for quite some time now and will not be changed.

Thank you for your concern,
Elvandil

I like his use of the word “prohibition”; like bittorrent is some sort of drug paraphernalia.  I also noticed Mr. Elvandil happens to be Microsoft MVP and a die-hard Windows user who is probably adverse to anything of value that isn’t proprietary.  This is just my own opinion as he is ignoring the fact that millions of people use Linux and a large portion of us download and share our Linux ISO files (for burning to CD) via bittorrent, among many other things 100% legal to share.  It is a world he is unfamiliar with or in denial about.

Fortunately in the world of Linux it’s recognized that bittorrent itself is not illegal at all and I was glad to see a helpful reply in ubuntuforums.org within minutes; a reply that made me realize that sometimes I can be a completely narrow-minded person, too.  ”Did you check your host-firewall?”  Why… NO!    So I opened my firewall manager Firestarter and sure enough saw blocked events taking place on the port I told my bittorrent client and router to use.  All I had to do with allow inbound traffic to take place on that port.  Talk about overlooking the obvious!

For about 4 years I’ve had a lot of faith placed in Netgear routers and networking equipment in general and had great luck with an old Wireless G router for years.  Until a couple weeks ago, when I began to notice that my downloads were actually being subjected to a tiny bit of packet corruption/swapping.  MD5 file integrity checks were repeatedly failing and I couldn’t get downloaded software to install, even if I used an Ethernet cable instead of a wireless connection.  Only a direct connect from laptop to the modem always did the trick, and so narrowed things down to the router.  Keep in mind that I troubleshot this problem for at least 5 hours across two days of experimenting using a PC and a Laptop, doing everything from full factory resets time after time, dismantling the router to blow it out with compressed air, to testing without wireless encryption enabled.  The sad fact became clear that if any data passed through the router at all there was a good chance it would be screwed up by the time it got to the computers.  And so began my quest for a replacement.

The dead router this little journey into hell all started off with was a Netgear WGT624 v3 with the latest firmware installed.  I’d owned this router for several years with nary a hiccup or serious problem the occasional power cycle couldn’t fix.  But as mentioned above, things started to get flaky and I had tried everything I and other forum crawling network experts could think of.  So I decided to head to my nearby Wal-Mart just a couple blocks away and pick up a new one; a Netgear WGR614 v9 router (and I installed the latest firmware after it arrived).  To my shock and disgust it had the exact same problem as the WGT624: data corruption.

So I exchanged it for a third router (a Netgear WPN824 v3) spending about 25 dollars extra after exchanging in the WGR614.  This new router solved the problem I was having with corrupted packets and I was relieved.  But then a new fucking problem cropped up!  For some reason the router would require a power cycle at least two or three times a day.  This was often because for some odd reason it would just randomly stop passing HTTP traffic between me and the Internet.  I could ping the modem (gateway) IP, as well as the ISP’s DNS server addresses, but I couldn’t ping Google nor visit any website except the routers internal configuration utility page (e.g., 192.168.1.1).  Even more bizarre was that one time this occurred after I had already accessed my computer by remote while I was away from home, using VNC on port 5900.  Let me say that again:  I had accessed my home PC over the Internet, and the router told me there was no active Internet connection when it went to check for firmware updates automatically after I logged into it to see if I could find the problem.

I put up with this router for a few days, hoping that after a while things would smooth out and I wouldn’t have to do power cycles so often.  They didn’t get better.  In fact, they got even worse.  I was already having to power cycle the router on a regular basis until one day PORT FORWARDING STOPPED WORKING!!  I couldn’t access my remote desktop over the Internet anymore and more importantly, I couldn’t accept incoming connection requests from Virtual Dave users.

Unfortunately I made the mistake early on (because the packet corruption problem had been resolved by the WPN824) that I was going to be happy with this router, and I threw the receipt away, so I couldn’t exchange it for a different router.  The only option I had left was to take this router back to Wal-Mart and exchange it for another one exactly like it.

Not only did this replacement WPN824 mimic all the problems the previous WPN824 had, but the packaging had evidence of actually being a refurbished product, sold off the shelf by Wal-Mart as a new item at full price!

I’m sure it’s one of the ways Netgear cuts corners for the sake of competing with other “rolled-back prices” in Wal-Mart; I hope they don’t pull this shit with other vendors.  I can’t assert that Wal-Mart is knowingly selling refurbished products at the same cost as a new item, but from the look of the professional shrink wrap job, they may not actually be aware of what’s going on.

Now you might say to me, “just because you have two seals doesn’t mean that you have refurbished rather than new. It may simply mean that at one point someone had to open the package for a customer, and the customer ended up not wanting it, or it was returned.”

Okay, I see your point, but it doesn’t change the fact that the router still didn’t work, nor did another one exactly like it I had purchased just a couple days earlier. Something odd I noticed between the two is the first of those two needed a firmware upgrade, but the second one didn’t. Just an observation.

There was one other suspicious piece of “evidence” I didn’t photograph and that was the “install the netgear software on your PC before you setup your router” sticker that covers the downlink ports on the back. It had obviously been re-applied before.

Also, the shrink wrap on the box wasn’t something you’d see from the standard cheap heat gun seal you’d find in most stores that will re-stock items with explicit “open-item” sticker with a reduced price on it; this LOOKED brand new from the outside, like it was sealed at the factory. So I guess the theory is, someone bought it from another Wal-Mart, found it didn’t work, returned it, Wal-Mart sent it to Netgear because they were told it was defective, Netgear put a new sticker on the bag around the router, and re-wrapped the packaging in house with little or no testing done on the hardware. I highly doubt Wal-Mart has spare Netgear stickers laying around to help disguise an open router bag.  And good lord, what does this say about the state of our economy!  I mean, if I were Netgear and I were serious about deception, I would still at least use a NEW replacement bag with a NEW tamper-sticker, instead of reusing an old one with a broken label stuck to it to save a few cents.

So to recap the sequence of routers I’ve been through:

Original Netgear WGT624 v3 (loved for years, dying of old age I thought), followed by a WGR614 v9 (which had the same problems as the previous router), followed by TWO WPN824 v3 routers. 4 Netgear routers, one old, two “new” and one that was obviously opened/returned/refurbished being sold as a new item.  They all failed me in the end.

I’ve said to hell with Netgear and Wal-Mart, caving in and going to pick up a Linksys/Cisco from Best Buy, but I’m not going to give it a thumbs up or down until I’ve had some time to test it out.  From what I hear, Linksys/Cisco’s are back up to snuff and have a better reputation than they did when I stopped using their products years ago.  We’ll see.

It’s 3 a.m. on Sunday the 26th and I’m just wrapping up the final touches to several upgrades and changes to Prymal Rhythm’s Website.  First up on the list is a calendar girl contest.

All of these hot babes are great looking but it is up to you to select your six favorite as they compete for a chance to be in an official Prymal Rhythm calendar.  Putting together the actual contest involved a good amount of PHP work by my programmer/site developer.  We had to come up with a way to help prevent ballot stuffing and figured the best way to do that is to require registration with a username/password and an confirmed email account.  This is where the next upgrade came in:  a new Members Area and a Forum for fans to chat with each other through.

This is a surprise bonus feature the fans have not been made aware of yet.

The last thing we did was basicly give the entire website a face lift by wrapping every page in the theme that was selected for the forum so the entire site matches and looks really cool.  There’s still a little work left to do but I would have to say we’re about 80% done now.  It’s been quite an exercise.