AllfatherBlack
Dec 22 2005, 10:19 AM
(excessively long intro, skip to 'suggestions' for immediate tips) Its almost 2 am and I just finished an email detailing some ideas I had to keep systems a little more secure than usual ( tips that can be applied to most any Windows users system ). I dont feel like re-editing it so it doesnt sound I copied and pasted it from my email, cause I did, and its late. Please note THIS IS NOT SPAM. I did write all of this, just in an email before I copied and pasted it here. These are entirely valid and ( I hope ) helpful tips for most anyone. Of course I hate just yapping away like I know everything, cause Ill be the first to admit thats no where NEAR true. If you have ACTUALLY TRIED these things a reasonable amount of times and dont think theyll be that helpful, PLEASE SAY SO. I need all the feedback I can get to come to an intelligent conclusion. If someone TOLD YOU that wont work, or you read somewhere online that it wont, or you just THINK it wont, please shut your mouth until youve actually TRIED it. Someone might accidently read your ignorance and think you know what your talking about. Good luck kicking arse. ------------------------------------ Suggestions - Install windows to a partition NOT lettered " C, D, E, or F " and name the system directory anything but "windows" : I dont think this will stop even a single decent piece of malware, but this might stop simple bombs or viruses simply programmed to install to " C: " or the " windows " folder, by far the most common primary drive letter and system directory name. Can be done during a new OS install or done with Partition Magic ( or an app like it ) - Ensure NO new OS install or customers computer leaves with administrative rights : Admin rights arent needed or often used by the common user, but using the Admin account can enable malware to molest your system like little boy at Neverland Ranch ( ba-ZING! ). Of course if they use a lot of different apps with saved user settings ( that might not get kept automatically when deleting an account ), we can just set their account to " limited. " - NO ONE should use IE as their primary browser : Its not like the damn thing is going to go away if you dont use it. People need to understand that theyre easy prey for malware and using something like Mozilla or Opera can save plenty of heartache ( not to mention Mozilla actually does kill pop-ups. IE claims it does, but sure as hell does a horrible job of it ). - Auto-blocking known bad sites and malware wildcards : Both IE and Mozilla offer options to block access to certain sites and wildcards ( ex *.trustedsites.com, *.adhost.com, etc. ). There are plenty of sites that offer extensive, constantly updated lists of known bad sites. Simply copying and pasting should prevent a good number of potential issues. - Kill unnecessary services : This might sound like an optimization kind of thing but also helps ensure the integrity of a system. Kind of like closing doors on a house, disabling unused services prevents malware from using flaws in those services to do... well, malicious things. Not to mention the system will be noticeably faster after a reasonable number of services have been killed. - Extended Anti-Virus Options : The Trinity is great; does what its supposed to do VERY well and without chewing on system resources like theyre delicious cupcakes covered in dual inline memory modules. But NO anti-virus is perfect. For advanced users who are willing to sacrifice a little hard drive space and extra memory, ClamWin is, in my opinion, the BEST anti-virus in existence. Updated every night at midnight, it offers no real-time protection and takes forever ( proportionately ) to scan even a single file, but its still the best. It takes forever because its ridiculously thorough ( it DOES open and check archived files, unlike AntiVir ), and real time protection can either be left to AntiVir, or, for mega-advanced users, WinPooch can be installed and associated with ClamWin, providing not only real-time protection, but the ability to see what malware is trying to do and the option to allow, deny, or fake it out, making the app in question THINK it successfully completed what it was trying to do when, in reality, it did not. This will keep malware from simply retrying if it fails until it succeeds ( not to mention constant attempts like that consume unseen resources ). Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta is also fantastic, and I suspect potentially better than spybot and/or adaware, though I have no substantial experience to justify that suspicion just yet. Its done fantastic for me a number of times, though, leaving one to question why they still call it " beta. " - More thorough suggestions as to what users should keep and NOT keep : I dont care what P2P app you use, from the worst ( Kazaa ) to the best ( Limewire ), ALL are potentially MASSIVE security threats. Most make it fairly simple to take IPs all willy-nilly, which is obviously not good, and ALL of them have infected file-sharing networks, from Paris Hilton-like disease buckets ( Kazaa ) to "who knows how dirty" like Lindsay Lohan ( Limewire ). NO ONE should be using AIM. AIM is the most popular IM service ( like Windows is the most popular OS ) and the target of most viruses because of it. Trillian offers a far more versatile and non-ad-intrusive experiance BY FAR. Also, rather than just removing Norton and/or McAfee, we should probably suggest users remove ALL ( ALL ALL ALL ALL ALL I cant say it enough ALL ) programs they may have downloaded to prevent malware because more often than not, what they download IS MALWARE. The ones that arent are usually *BLEEP* anyway and are only eating up HD space next to the *BLEEP*ing masters, so they should bow down like the ankle-licking *BLEEP*es they are before AntiVir gets uneasy and karate chops the *BLEEP* out of them. This INCLUDES spamblockers. If users are worried about spam, they need to 1) get a better mail service and/or 2) learn better browsing tactics. And will someone please explain to me what the hell the appeal is with Outlook? Cause thats *BLEEP*, and I never have and never will use it. ---------------------------- I jabber on about some of my other suggestions in other topics, so feel free to check em out if you think Im not an idiot ( or you think I AM an idiot but I might keep your computer a little cleaner ). Well Im squeezed for now. Chew on that!
Reply
sportytalk
Dec 22 2005, 06:28 PM
Hey, this is a nice little page on security tips for keeping pc's secure. What you've said is 100% correct, people just don't realise how they're opening vulnerabilites to their machines while they're installing software which allegedly gets rid of malware (which it doesn't actually do, etc). A firewall will definitely help. Every computer user with access to the interent should use a firewall, as this is another step towards stopping people connecting to your computer without your permission - This doesn't help in all cases tho, if you download a file whilst browsing the web etc. (The file could disable the firewall.) Once again, thanks for the little tutorial, i'm sure the other users will find this interesting aswell  Keep up the good work!
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good-baby
May 2 2006, 11:06 AM
A very nice and really help full little tutorial , that really help to keep PC secure from from un-necessary threads....  . Buddy a really nice sharing.
Reply
BEagle
May 9 2006, 02:24 PM
Kool nice one, i'll be reviewing these tips in more detail, cos my pc is really bad security wise.
Reply
innocent-devil
Jun 29 2006, 04:52 PM
thanx buddy for your so nice sharing. Infact these are really very helpful security tips. These would help any body alot. thanx again.
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