Online Security

Until recent times we should not care about antivirus apps for mobile device. But now situation changed. There are only few viruses for Android, iOS and BlackBerry mobile operating systems while the number of malware apps for Windows Mobile and Symbian increases rapidly. Here is the list of most effective mobile antivirus solutions for WinMo and Symbian mobile operating systems.

BullGuard Mobile Antivirus
Key features:
●Scans all incoming traffic like SMS & MMS messages, Bluetooth, emails and downloads for malicious programs.
●You can launch a scan of your mobile device at any time to ensure it is free from threats
●Automatic over-the-air updates ensure your device is protected against the latest threats
Supported platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0 and higher, Symbian S60 9.x, Symbian UIQ v3.X
Price: $39.95

ESET Mobile Antivirus
Key features:
●Fast signature scanner finds and cleans known threats before they can cause damage. Heuristics engine protects against unknown threats between signature updates
●Scans all accessed files for viruses, including email attachments and files accessed via wireless means such as Bluetooth, WiFi, infrared, GPRS and EDGE
●Block text messages from unknown senders or use black and whitelists to filter your SMS messages.
●Download signature updates on-demand or automatically at pre-set intervals: daily, weekly, or monthly.

Supported platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.x
Price: $24.95/yr

F-Secure Mobile Security
Key features:
●Complete, automatically updated security solution for business smartphones.
●Includes firewall, real-time anti-virus and anti-spyware to protect against mobile malware.
●Advanced anti-theft features.
●Remote Lock can lock the phone easily with a single SMS message.

Supported platforms: Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition, Symbian UIQ v3.X, Windows Mobile 6.x
Price: $39.99/yr

Kaspersky Mobile Security
Key features:
●Prevent spam and viruses from infecting your phone while you’re surfing the Internet
●Real-time scanning and advanced firewall for 24/7 protection
●Remotely block access to your phone if it is lost or stolen
●Block, clean and find your phone even if your SIM card has been replaced

Supported platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.x, Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition
Price: $29.95/yr

McAfee Mobile Security
Key features:
●Automatically cleans infections as it finds viruses, worms, Trojans, or other threats
●Keeps confidential information safe and avoid loss of vital data through virus infections or other intrusions
●Examines all e-mail, instant-message attachments, Internet downloads, SMS, MMS, WiFi®, and Bluetooth® transfers for threats

Supported platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.x

Norton Smartphone Security
Key features:
●Eliminates text and multimedia spam messages
●Stops cybercriminals from stealing information from your mobile device
●Prevents strangers from spying on you and seeing your private information on public networks
●Detects and removes mobile threats before they can cause you problems

Supported platforms: Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition, Windows Mobile 6.x
Price: $29.99/yr

Trend Micro Mobile Security
Key features:
●Secures information against accidental loss
●Improves protection while reducing complexity
●Reduces administration with integrated management
●Maintains mobile worker productivity

Supported platforms: Windows Mobile 5.0, Windows Mobile 6.x, Symbian S60 3rd and 5th Edition

Phishing becomes one of the most widespread online threats. Fraudsters try to acquire information such login/password, credit card details by masquerading false sites as a trustworthy ones. These sites look the like original ones and have analogous web addresses like google.com and gooqle.com. Fortunately present-day web browsers have better security than some year ago and have phishing blocking systems. This article is about ways to protect your computer against phishing in Mozilla Firefox.
First of all Firefox 3.xx has built-in anti-phishing system. It is active on default. To make sure you should go to Options > Security.

To test this system you can go to this page. Unfortunately this system doesn’t provide absolute security. And it is recommended to use some additional tools. One of them is Liberty Guard 1.47. To use this add-on you should register an account on Liberty Reserve’s site.

Liberty Guard panel is located at the bottom right corner. When you are on real site it will blink green to let you know that you have not opened a fake Liberty Reserve (phishing) web site. According to official source the list of phishing web sites are updated every hour. There is special system that helps you to report new phishing web sites and malicious web sites (Tools > Liberty Guard > Report a phishing website)
Another add-on is IDND 1.5.3

It also places a special panel that tells you whether you are visiting a Traditional Domain Name (green TDN) or an International Domain Name (UN-blue IDN). IDN’s can be used for phishing or spoofing, so suspicious domain names cause an alert box.
As you can seen these add-ons has much in common. Besides there is a number of good alternatives like Netcraft Toolbar, PhishTank SiteChecker, Petname Tool.

Recently Google launched its Public DNS service. But why do we need it? First Google Public DNS is needed to make Web pages load faster. Every time you enter website address in your browser the request is sent to your Internet provider that processes this request. So Google asserts that its DNS will work faster. The second reason to use Public DNS is safety. Malefactors can replace server names cache and direct you to malware sites. Using of Google Public DNS reduces this threat.
On the other hand using of this service will provide Google information about all sites you visit.
To start using this DNS service, just change Internet connection properties to
Preferred DNS: 8.8.8.8
Alternative DNS: 8.8.4.4

1. Antivirus software should be installed before Internet connection setup. Often viruses get in your computer before you download antivirus application or updates. Local network connection also should be disabled.
2. It is recommended to use antivirus that has real-time scanning functions. Such kind of antivirus software requires more system resources but provides more reliable protection. Viruses will be caught ‘on the fly’ and will not have time to penetrate the system.
3. Use ‘on-demand’ scanner regularly. Real time scanners monitor only confined number of ‘points’. But some viruses get in computer using security vulnerabilities that are not protected by ‘on-access’ scanner.
4. Don’t use more than one antivirus at the same time. Such situation can cause conflicts that will slow down your computer. Besides, solutions from different vendors may mistakenly take each other’s anti-virus databases as viruses.
5. Update your anti-virus databases as often as it possible. For example, ESET Nod32 bases are update three-five times per day.

Here is the list of 10 free applications that help you to secure and control you personal computer.

Secunia Personal Software Inspector

This application scans scan, detect, checks and secure all software installed on your computer looking for vulnerabilities and gives you direct links to update programs that are older and potentially not secure. This tool analyses EXE, DLL and OCX files and collects all information about installed applications.

OpenDNS

It is free ‘mast have’ service that hastens web surfing through Web content filtering and protects you from phishing. It redirects web traffic through its DNS nameservers. OpenDNS also provides an opportunity of parental control.

GMER anti-rootkit

This free application scans you PC for rootkits and removes them. It is said to be perfect tool for search of hidden processes, services, threads, files, modules, registry keys, inline hooks and drivers.

Netcraft Toolbar

Netcraft Toolbar community is a giant neighbourhood watch scheme. Once the first recipients of a phishing mail have reported the target URL, it is blocked for community members as they subsequently access the URL.

CCleaner

It is free system optimizer and cleaning tool. It can help to find unused system files and allow Windows to run faster. Beside it traces all online activities and has built-in registry cleaner.

I’ve just found this site. Here you can learn about almost any process. This library helped me to detect two new trojans on my PC. You can also visit this page for faster navigation in the library.

To close open ports choose “Traffic Policy” in left column of the window. There is a list of current options. Then press “Add” under the list of options to create new one. Double click on “Any” in “Destination” section will open this window.

Press “Add” and enter “localhost”. The press “OK”. Double click in “Action” section will open this window.

Please choose “Drop” and press “OK”.

To finish operation click on “Service” section and enter a number of port you want to close. That’s all.

Open application. Press “Firewall” in the left menu of main window than press “Expert”.
Here you have to select protocol and type a name of port you want to close.
Using this method you can close all open ports you want.

When you are surfing the global network uses opens a number of ports. The most of software applications are intended for using of fixed port. As you can see on this picture Interne Explorer uses 80 port. Mail delivery applications such as Outlook and The Bat! use 25 and 110 ports. If you install Emule it will open 4662 and 4672 ports. Thus I computer is not secure because every application can open any port and transmit data by way of it. Besides, any external application also can connect to these ports. For example, I-Worm.MyDoom trojan can infect you PC. It opens 3127 port and hand over your private information. To reduce this threat and to monitor all ports there is some special applications. To reduce such thread you should close ports that you don’t need. There is some ways to it. For example to use Windows Worms Doors Cleaner. It is easy to use but it gives an opportunity to close only 135-139, 445 and 5000 ports. But to set up more reliable protection you should use special applications such as Firewalls. In next posts I’ll describe how to reduce this threat by means of such firewalls as Outpost Firewall, Kaspersky Internet Security, ZoneAlarm PRO, Comodo Firewall and Kerio Personal Firewall
PS Here you can see the list of common ports and to check them.

Almost all Internet users face problem related to passwords and personal data storage. Usually we use a lot of different services and most of them ask you to inter your unique password and username. Some people use the same combination for all sites and services they use but it is clear that such method is not reliable. Fraudsters can still your combination and act like you on every site. So we have to do smth with the great number of passwords that we use.
There is some software applications which store you passwords but they have a number of disadvantages – for example, you can not use them when you use not your own computer. It is more secure and comfortable to use online passwords storage services. I know that there is a number of online password storage services which are reliable and easy to use but I use this one.
Clipperz - This service is very easy to use and provides a lot of opportunities. You can create different cards for different sites. There is also Direct Login function – it creates special links. Clicking them you can directly login to any site without entering password/login combination. If you are Firefox user you can use this service in sidebar window. There is another interesting feature – disposable passwords. You can list them and to use in the place were it can be stolen for example in a library or Internet cafe.

Present day viruses can infect not only your computer but also for your mobile device. Kaspersky Lab has just reported about detecting of three variants of new trojan application for mobile phones. It is Trojan-SMS.SymbOS.Viver. This spyware sends paid SMS messages to premium number. Thus money is transferred from users account to fraudsters account. This kind of trojan applications is not so new. Similar applications were detected last year. They are able to run on almost every mobile platform. But Viver virus is assigned only for Symbian mobile operating system. Thus it is first trojan-SMS virus for smartphones. The analysis shows that this virus is distributed by means of free warez sites and looks like useful Symbian applications such as media players, photo editors and etc.

Today we have to pay for almost everything, but there are still some pleasant exclusions. I have to note that all free antivirus applications doesn’t guarantee maximum security and defend your computer only against the most widespread viruses. It is said that more than 200 of new scumware applications appear each day. So the key factor is regularly updates. Unfortunately in case of free antivirus applications doesn’t give such opportunity.
There are two kinds of antivirus software. The first one is “on-demand”. Such applications are recommended for those users who don’t use Internet and email and don’t copy too much files to their computes. You can use “on-demand” antivirus only to check new disk or storage device. The second type is “on-access” applications – usually they include “on-demand” scanner but have also special mode which monitors all processes. Such application are more effective but can slowdown your PC (it is not of current importance for present day computers).
Among “on-demand” scanners I can recommend Bitdefender. You can find free version of this application on official web site. Virus definitions bases are updated regularly. Due to this Bitdefender is one of the best of free antiviruses of such class. According to some specialist it is able to detect more than 88% of all viruses.
Another free “on-demand” antivirus is ClamWin. It is assigned for Windows. It can not delete infected files but can move them to “quarantine”. It also can integrate with Internet Explorer and Outlook. It is said that it detects 48.44% of all known viruses.
“On-access” antiviruses have more opportunities. For example avast! 4 Home Edition. It has so much features that it is difficult to believe that it is free) This application supports Windows XP Professional x64 and has an opportunity to monitor web traffic. Virus bases are updated regularly. It detects about 79% of all known viruses.
The next antivirus is developed by German AntiVir. AntiVir® PersonalEdition Classic has no such impressive list of features but nevertheless it copes with a task. Antivirus bases are also updated very often. It is said that it detects 84.5% of present day viruses.
The last antivirus application is AVG Free by Grisoft Inc. . It is rather famous and updates its bases some times per day. Unfortunately according to research the percent of detected viruses is only 54. But it has very nice and usable user interface.