Tech Notes

Anti-Phishing Tools

See a list of things users should do to prevent becoming a victim of online crime reproduced from at article at eweek.com.

Spyware Removal Tools  Spyware* - you're infected and don't even know it!

By conservative estimates, 9 out of 10 computers that connect to the internet are infected. And this includes people who are diligent about running their anti-spyware 2-3 times a week. Scary, huh?

But what harm can spyware do, you ask? Well, here is a list of scary stuff to make your Halloween especially ironic -

Spyware slows your machine down - when you are infected with spyware, your computer starts getting slower and slower, since the spyware runs in the background and goes out to various sites, it consumes your memory and hard disk resources.
Spyware eats your bandwidth for breakfast - seconds after you start your computer, spyware starts hitting you with popups and starts communicating with remote machines (not in your home/office) across the world. So, since these bugs are pushing information to those servers and pulling information from those servers - net result? Your internet gets slower.

Spyware can fish up your personal information - some particularly nastier bugs can log your keystrokes and report that to the mothership. So, potentially private information is not private anymore! This could include credit card information, passwords and other damaging stuff. As spyware gets more sophisticated, this could become a real and present danger!

But how do they get past your firewall and antivirus? Well, you don't need to invite them in, in most cases. Some scripts (geek speak for the bugs) infect vulnerable websites and their webmasters haven't a clue. You go to this website to look up some information, and before you know it, a tiny piece of information is dumped on your machine, only to go out to the mother ship and download the actual nasty spyware that can give you ulcers.

But I run an updated Antivirus Software (Norton/McAfee) and I have a firewall, so I am protected right?   WRONG. You are still very vulnerable. Because, these bugs come in through your browser (port 80 traffic) and your firewall and your Antivirus cannot stop them.         

Free Programs 

        Ad-aware                        Spybot                        Spysweeper

Virus Protection

Online virus Protection: http://security.symantec.com/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&vendid=sym

            Latest Information on Virus Protection:

                        www.sarc.com
                        www.virusbtn.com
                        http://csrc.ncsl.nist.gov/virus

            Information about Virus Hoaxes

                        http://sarc.com/avcenter/hoax.html
                        www.vmyths.com

            Norton Anti-virus updates

                        www.symantec.com/avcenter/defs.download.html

            McAffee Anti-virus Updates

                        http://download.mcaffee.com/us/upgradeCenter/default.asp

            Microsoft Windows Updates
                        http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Troubleshooting 
 

            Modem drivers
                        www.driverguide.com
                        www.56k.com
                        www.windrivers.com
                        www.modemhelp.net
                        www.modemsite.com 
 Drivers for Brand Name Equipment     
Compaq and HP products
                        http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en.support.html           

3Com Products
                        http://www.3com.com/products/en_us/downloadsindex.jsp 

            Gateway
                        http://support.gateway.com/support/default.asp 

            Dell
                        http://support.dell.com/support./default.asp?c=us&l=en&s=gen           

IBM
             www.ibm.com/support/us           

E-machines
             www.emachines.com/support 

            Epson
                        http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/Supportindex.jsp 

            Lexmark
                        http://www.lexmark.com/us/support/drivers 

            Xerox
                        http://www.xerox.com/support 
 

Service Department - Tech Notes