AND YOU THOUGHT WINTER WAS THE SEASON TO CATCH A VIRUS?

YUP - A DIFFERENT SORT OF VIRUS

This isn't a "Toe-may-toe/Toe-mah-toe" story, more of a tomato/potato post. Summer is officially here, and unless you live in one of those all-year-round school systems, your kids are home for the summer; infecting your household computers with viruses.

In the virus killing business, summer is like "Christmas for retailers", and business is always good because the people who write malware get better with each version they update [ed. - a practice I'd like to see Microsoft adapt with all of their updates: "get better"].

As mentioned before, you can't rely solely on your anti-virus alone to protect you. Recently, Symantec's Senior VP of Information Security, Bryan Dye made some eye opening comments like:

"According to Dye’s estimates, traditional cybersecurity methods catch more than 45 percent of threats. The problem, he says, is that anti-virus alone is insufficient." [Source: Fortune Article]

Granted, this is coming from a company whose revenue was 7% lower the first quarter of this year vs. last year, but nonetheless he spoke the truth. I can't remember the last time telling a customer that all they needed was an anti-virus product. Usually I'll add:

• Use a Malware cleaning utility like Malwarebytes [and remember to run it at least once a month - preferably twice]
• Keep Flash, Adobe Reader, AIR, and JAVA updated via their websites ONLY.
• Possibly use a good ad-ware cleaner
• And recently, using Malwarebytes Anti-exploit program, which runs in your browser. [Yes, there's a FREE version of that one too]. It was just announced about ten days ago.

My list could be a lot longer but I realize that most users will only keep up with one or two of the other options because it's too much like work. Most of us just want to come home at the end of the day and catch up on some news, Blogs, and email. 

Most desktops are so full of files, folders, and icons it's easy to miss the tell-tale signs of infections like: "MyPC-Backup", "PC-Optimizer", or "24 x 7". And when the browser finally opens with several more toolbars running across the browser, it's just shrugged off.

Because it is summer, and the kids are using computers all day long, it would help if you did two things:

1. Make sure they have an account that is separate from yours, and your account has a password they don't know.
2. Make their account a STANDARD or LIMITED user, with limits the ability as to what they can install on the computer, whether they're aware it's being done or not.
3. I'll add this third item to my list: Unless you really have to let them use your computer - DON'T. Go out and buy a $350 Windows 8 laptop to mess up; not the computer you do your banking or home-business work with.

This in itself will help you out quite a bit, and although you'll get tired of repeated requests to install something for them, try to resist giving their account full privileges.

As reported in an earlier post, while the folks who brought us "Zeus" and "Cryptolocker" had been busted and their operation shutdown, it doesn't mean that it's safe to go into the water again.

Recently a customer was on the receiving end of an encrypting virus. Every file he double-clicked on told him it was encrypted and that he'd have to pay a hefty fee to get those files un-encrypted. Another good reason to have Carbonite...
 

'Nuff Said,
Brian