mysecurepc

I tried f-secure healthcheck today to see if my computer was up to snuff. To quote from f-secure:

• checks whether you have an Anti-Virus, Firewall and Anti-Spyware software installed on your computer
• checks whether you have known vulnerabilities in your applications
• checks whether you have applications that are no longer supported by the vendor
• helps you fix the vulnerabilities found.

In my case (Vista), a few programs were found that were out-of-date, which were easily fixed. As we feel at mysecurepc.com you can never be too careful.

And best of all: f-secure scan is free. Let us know your findings.

Doug

Do you know what computer programs are on your computer? More important, do you know the registration keys? If a virus destroyed your computer could you reinstall all the software without the hassle of finding the registration keys? This scenario happens all the time. If you lose your registration key and did not register the software the only alternative may be to repurchase the software. Not a fun idea.

Belarc advisors have a free software inventory product that lists out an inventory of your computer. Not only are the registration keys included but software versions, installed Microsoft hotfixes, hardware, and virus protection. If any hotfix is missing you will know it. Best of all, according to Belarc’s privacy notice, this information remains private: the data is only kept on your computer and not sent back to Belarc or anywhere else.

Mysecurepc recommends running and saving the software inventory every month or every time a major piece of software is installed. And keep the inventory page backed up.

A fake Windows patch has been making its rounds among email. The subject line reads “Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-0065 — Critical Update” and appears to come from update@microsoft.com. A link is provided in the spam email urging readers to click on it and download the June 18 patch.

What really happens is the victim is taken to a website (one of several) where a Trojan horse (Behav-112) is downloaded to the computer and used for spam or denial of service attacks.

Doug

Getting rid of a computer or a hard drive? Does it have sensitive data on it? Just deleting it does not do the job. Even reformatting the hard drive is not good enough.

Deleted data is simple to recover, especially in Windows XP. A data recovery program, often free, is all that is needed to undelete data. What can be done to ensure that prying eyes will never see your data?

Plenty.

Boot and nuke an open source program will completely wipe out any data on a hard drive. It is a dangerous program (i.e. there is no turning back once it erases) so be careful in using it. It meets the DOD (Dept of Defense) requirements for complete eradication of data. A bootable disk or CD is created then the computer in question is booted up and goodbye data.

Some entities such as some government agencies and private parties use drastic measures such as saws, sledge hammers, and grinders to ensure no data is left behind. While this may do the job the hard drive cannot be used again…it is off to the land fill.

There is an easier way to get rid of your data but still be able to reuse the hard drive. In Windows XP you can encrypt all your data files, reformat the drive and you are done. This erases the encryption file keys forever. Perhaps the encrypted files can be recovered but without the decryption key all is lost.

Don’t forget to securely destroy CD/DVDs used to store data. Several paper shredders have a feature for chopping up a CD/DVD. We do not think this is a good enough solution. Once the CD/DVD is chopped up, separate it into several piles and dispose of them separately.

Doug