Have Win32/Conflicker? No excuses for the infected

The latest worm to plague Windows users the Win32/Conflicker, also known as "Downadup" is spreading like wildfire. Sadly there's no excuse for people catching this junk and joining the bot-net. Microsoft patched this hole on October 23rd 2008 in a out of cycle security patch. So, people who have their updates turned on automatically are protected, those who don't can get Microsoft's updated version of their Malicious Software Removal Tool here, at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad724ae0-e72d-4f54-9ab3-75b8eb148356&displaylang=en
I imagine most anti-virus programs will find this as well, but if your anti-virus is expired and your updates aren't turned on, you're probably hosed by now anyway.

It’s All About the Data

Today’s computers are amazing, when you consider the processing power available, and the amount of storage you can have for incredibly little money, even the low end bargain computers today can do amazing things. You can easily build a $500 desktop computer that has a multi-core processor, and a terabyte of storage, with the power to edit video and photos, or play graphic intensive video games. But whether you’re running a $7000 custom high end gaming machine, or a $399 special from a sale at the local retailer the most important and precious thing in your computer is your data. Data is everything, it’s your kids baby pictures, your entire music collection, or possibly that book you've been writing for the last three years.

The problem with data is, even though it’s the most important thing on your hard drive, it’s frequently the least considered. To protect your data generally isn’t very hard, but its very easy to put off. People rationalize that since the hard drive from that Windows 95 machine still runs that their current machine will be fine for now and I’ll just do that backup next week when I have time. Unfortunately just when you least expect it, your hard drive crashes the night before you finished the report your boss wanted first thing in the morning or you lose the pictures of family members that can’t be replaced.

So now you know, backing up isn’t an option.  Backing up isn’t hard, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. If you’ve never backed up before it can be as simple as buying an external hard drive, or even a large thumb drive, and dragging your important files over to the external drive periodically.

Saving your important files to a external drive is the first step. The next step will be to implement an automated system of backing up at least once a week. For that you need software. If you are running Windows Vista and you want to keep it simple the built in “Backup and Restore Center“ will help you set up weekly backups of all your important data. It’s very simple and works well, I’ve successfully used it to back up and restore all the important data on my daughters computer after a disaster.

For a more thorough backup solutions I prefer third party programs. Acronis True Image Home, is an excellent program. http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/It has more capabilities than some users may want, but it has the ability to make an entire image of your hard drive as well as do incremental backups periodically afterward. Programs that create an image, allow you to take the hard drive you backed up on, and put it in your computer and boot up like nothing ever happened. It saves your operating system, all of your programs, settings, and your data. The new version of Acronis has great new feature, it will perform dual backups to both a flash drive and a hard drive at the same time.

This leads me to my last point, backing up to more than one location is very important. A simple solutions is to use two separate external hard drives, swap out one and backup to the second while you keep the other off site. This could be at work, at a friends house or anywhere away from your home. Another effective off site backup is to do a backup to an online service of some kind. Microsoft offers a free 25 gigabyte storage service called “Skydrive” available to anyone with a Windows Live account.http://download.live.com/  Amazon S3 service is another reliable online backup service, S3 isn’t free but you pay only for the space you use, unlike some flat rate services.http://aws.amazon.com/s3/

Backing up is necessary inconvenience, developing a routine that fits your needs will make it relatively painless, and some day it will save you a lot of heartache. Remember there are two kinds of hard drives, those that have failed and those that will fail. Many people get serious about backing up only, after they've lost all their pictures or music on their hard drive. There are many very good programs for backing up, either to local storage, or to an online service. I mentioned two which I’ve had experience with and trust, but there are many, very good ones out there.

One last point.Some people using a new online backup services which offered “free” online storage from a relatively new and unknown company suddenly got a surprise when their online storage recently went offline forever. This left them with no backup at all. So staying with companies like Amazon for your online “cloud” storage feels like a safe bet. So backup early and often, because "it’s all about the data".

Traditional Technology Media changing

Last week I learned that 2 of my favorite tech magazines, PC Magazine, and PC World have made immense changes, either in their staffing, or in their formats. PC Magazine has announced it will be ending its print edition altogether. The January 2009 edition of PC Mag. will be their last. I have to admit I’m bummed. PC Magazine has been one of favorite magazines for years, from their reviews on hardware, to their “Ask Lloyd” and Ask Neil” advise pages, the magazine has been a great source of technology news for more than 2 decades. The good news is, that they aren’t cutting any staff. According to the PC MAgcast podcast, they’ve been transitioning for the last few years to a digital only model, which will still be available for subscription. I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out, I wish them good luck. http://www.pcmag.com/

I wish I was as enthusiastic about the changes going on at PC World. Apparently in an attempt to remain solvent, they’ve cut several of their highest paid, and in my opinion, best writers. Steve Bass has been writing a fantastic tech advise column for over 14 years and was the first place I’d turn to when a new issue arrived. Steve was let go without much ceremony, last month, without even an opportunity to say goodbye to his loyal readers.  Apparently he will be writing an occasional piece, but his old column is gone. Fortunately for his fans, Steve has started his own newsletter  which is available for email delivery. I encourage everyone to visit his new site at http://www.techbite.com/ and sign up and support this great tech writer.

Windows 7 is coming

For the last two weeks Microsoft has been unveiling their next operating system, Windows 7. Windows 7 will be built on the framework of Windows Vista and will strive to remain compatible with Vista drivers. That said people who avoided Vista for performance reasons may have reason to try Windows 7. One fact that gives hesitant XP users hope is that Steven Sinosky the Vice President running the Windows 7 team uses a Asus eeePC netbook computer as his daily machine running Windows 7. These netbooks are a relatively new class of computer with 7-10 inch screens and running either Intel Atom, or Via, mobile processors, at around 1.5 GHZ. The netbooks are usually shipped with either some form of Linux or Windows XP Home, operating systems largely because of their modest hardware requirements. If Window 7 will run well on a netbook than it should fly on more modern hardware commonly found on most new hardware.

More Security Applications

I recently blogged about my favorite security applications, I neglected to mention one of the best antispyware apps available at any cost. Malwarebytes is available in free or paid versions from here http://www.malwarebytes.org/index.php

Malwarebytes is fast, lightweight, and very effective. I use it along with Superantispyware on all my machines as well as a antivirus application to keep me safe online.

Another new recommendation I can make is for Norton Antivirus 2009. Symantec started to greatly improve the performance of their antivirus product with their 2008 version. I was happy after using it for around 8 months of trouble free use, I felt it was vastly superior to the 2004 version I had last used. That said, Norton 2008 still slowed my computer down significantly when it would run a scan. Recently Symantec offered users of Antivirus 2008 a free upgrade to their Norton Antivirus 2009. After the download I was immediately impressed with the improved performance. The scans can either run at full speed or in the background using far fewer system resources, (and taking a lot longer). Either way there seems to be far less of a performance hit, a CPU meter displayed on the side of the display window shows how few resources the new Norton 2009 Antivirus uses.

While I do recommend Norton Antivirus, I still don't recommend the Norton Security suites. I recently tried a version of Norton Internet Security that came preinstalled on a new laptop I bought for my son. It suffered from all the bloat and connectivity issues security suites always do. So I commend Symantec for the new antivirus, but I'll pass on the bloated, all in one suites.

Acronis True Image on Sale

You can get a great deal on Acronis True Image 11 Home by using the coupon code ATIH20 and save 80%. The deal is good until September 30th 2008.
Acronis is a great hard drive imaging and backup program for Windows (Vista compatible).
I use Acronis to image all my installs, I think its the easiest solution out there for baking up or upgrading to a larger/faster hard drive.

Online Security Tools Revisited

Online security is getting more difficult, as the bad guys trying to infect you change their tactics. Some of the older tools that we could rely on to do the job just don't cut it anymore.

Older Programs that haven't kept up:

Spybot Search and destoy

Adaware

Norton 360

McAfee Antivirus/ Security Suite

Trend Micro Antivirus

Any, all in one security suite.

There are many reasons I don't like these various applications anymore. In general security suites, like Norton 360 are bloated, slow down your computer, and aren't that effective. Adaware and Spybot, just don't seem to be able to get rid of anything they find, if they do detect a infection.

Newer Programs that do work:

Superantispyware

Smitfraud Fix

PC Tools Threatfire

PC Doctor Antispyware

Nod 32 Antivirus

Sunbelt Software's Vipre Antivirus

AVG Antivirus (Free)

Avast Antivirus (Free)

Returnil (Virtualizes your sessions) 

WOT (Web of Trust) browser filter

Sysinternals Process Explorer,Autoruns, Rootkit Revealer

Hijack This

This list of programs I feel are, in general, lighter on your computers resources, and more effective at dealing with threats. Returnil isn't really an anti-malware program, but a program that virtualizes your sessions. Any changes to your system are removed when you reboot. Now this can be a pain, when you forgot you were running Returnil and downloaded a song off of Amazon or installed a new program, but its great if your just going to be surfing or if you want to keep a teenager from hosing a computer while they use it. Smit Fraud Fix is a specialized program designed to eliminate the new epidemic of phoney Anti-spyware programs out there today. The Sysinternal applications aren't new at all, but have been updated. They are incredibly useful tools to find out what's going on on your computer. They're fairly complicated looking at first glance, but after a while a user will be able to detect a process that isn't right, or not supposed to be loading on your computer at startup. Hijack This is a great tool to find out what's going on with your computer, its fairly complex to use effectively and should only be attempted by an experienced user.

I still believe that the best defense against malware is to have an ongoing backup program, preferable an automated backup to an external drive as well as periodic data backups to CDs or DVDs. Even better, a third backup to an online provider such as Carbonite or Amazon's S3 service truly keeps you ready for the the really bad infection, that you can't remove or a hardware failure, which can happen at any time.

One last thing their are many other programs out there that are effective a great site I read daily is Bill Mullins blog over on wordpress http://billmullins.wordpress.com/ Bill is a blogging machine! He comes up with an enormous number of useful free and shareware apps, I highly recommend his site.

Stay Safe.