security – Page 2

What Is Hacking? How To Not Be A Victim?

August 25, 2009 by Raj Agrawal 5 Comments

A guide to keep away from online thieves

First of all, what is hacking? In computer language, hacking is the art of detecting the loop hole in the security system of a computer and exploiting that loop hole to intrude in the main system. The intention may be evil or may even be a step to find and fix the vulnerabilities.

A computer system is designed to have a strong security mechanism but due to limitations of human intelligence, the security mechanism is not a perfect one. It is next to impossible to actually produce a software which is non-hackable. If you compare the computers with us humans, you will be astounded that every detailed functioning in a computer is very similar to what humans work like. After all it is our imagination and our way of life style that led us to make computers real. The important difference is that, the the digital world possess intelligence with no emotions and humans possess both! And so, it’s ‘our vulnerabilities’ that make us design a strong but, a vulnerable computer system. Computers are our legacy!

There are some simple ways to protect your computer system from many types of network intrusions and data thefts.

Never open e-mails from unknown/untrusted senders. Some bad e-mails contain malicious codes that are crafted to install on your computer to damage and/ or steal your personal information.
Avoid clicking on unknown links sent to you on social networking sites as they bear the same reason as the first one.
Buy a copy of Bit defender Internet Security Suite for greater security. Avoid using AntiVir, Dr.WEB, NOD, Macffee and Norton. They are totally unreliable. Use Comodo Firewall.
If you are a Windows user and you don’t use the LAN sharing feature, tweak the services and turn off the NET BIOS option for better security and speed.
For online transactions, make sure that the websites where you are performing the transactions are https enabled. For example, you should use https://paypal.com and not http://paypal.com. The ‘https‘ is preferred for enhanced security and is always used by legitimate websites concerned with e-commerce.
If the firewall alerts you regarding an incoming connection, if you are unsure of who and why it is, never accept it.
While registering on any website, always prefer setting pass-phrases that exceed 14 characters.
If you are an advanced user, effectively enhance your computer security with Harden IT and Secure IT.

These recommendations are not all the things to keep away every hacker but, some simple steps to perform on a system that will protect the user from most of the online thieves and their hacking attempts.

Hardening And Securing It

June 1, 2009 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Prevention is much better than curing it

Internet & Network security have always been a matter of great concern and will continue to be, there is no doubt. Content theft, network intrusion, phishing, password cracking, key logging e.t.c are some of the most common types of attacks that take place everyday all around the world. If a “hacker/attacker” is intending to hack into something, no matter how secure the target is, he’ll do anything to get his job done.

This doesn’t mean it’s easy to hack into anything and everything. Hacking is only possible if a security system allows a hacker intrude in, whether through a loop hole or by breaking in forcefully. Again, loop holes can only be exploited if they are successfully found.

If the security system is smart enough or the loop holes are timely identified and blocked, it’s always better. Earlier i had written a similar article on “How To Achieve Better Security” which explains an unconventional way to keep away malware from your system. To add more, there are two great freeware applications called, Harden It and Secure It by Sniff’em that block many of the ignored security flaws, in Microsoft Windows. You just install these tiny apps(only few KBs in size), run them and secure your PC from the all the security adjustments they offer. Also, their list is updated frequently, so you can protect your system from newly discovered flaws.

What is Secure-It™ ?

Secure-It™ is a local Windows security hardening tool developed by Thierry Zoller, it proactively secures your PC by either disabling the intrusion and propagation vectors proactively or reduce the attack surface by disabling underlying functionality malware uses to execute itself.

It secures Windows desktop PCs against new dangers by blocking the root cause of the vulnerabilities exploited by malware, worms and spy ware. In some cases Secure-it is even able to protect your PC against threats prior to a patch release of the vendor.

What is Harden-It™ ?

Harden-It™ is a Network and System hardening tool for Windows, by hardening the IP stack your Network can sustain or completely thwart various sophisticated network attacks. Harden-It is intended for advanced or professional user.

The Need For Speed Continues…

May 6, 2009 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

Seeding up the OS

We know that a better PC Gaming experience comes only if the system resources are sufficiently available. If the system is out dated, it needs to be upgraded. If the games are still lagging at play, some even consider upgrading it further. This is when there is a need to check where and how to system resources are being used. There are many cases where the computer hardware is sufficient to run the game flawlessly but the Operating System is not properly setup or configured and the users without knowing this fact, spend more money to make their system run better.

Game Booster Logo

A long time ago, one of my friends bought a new high end HP Laptop with almost all the attractive features. I really liked that system but, the only thing that irked my eye was that is was preloaded or say “cursed” with Windows Vista. My friend was happy with the OS and why wouldn’t he be, he was a newbie. He enjoyed the candy coated looks and the GUI. A month later, i got a call from him and he said how frustrated he was with the consistent decrease in the speed. He was worried that the hardware just have gone faulty and was willing to get it repaired or upgraded or some newbie thought like that. As his hardware system was actually up-to-date, i recommended him to downgrade the OS to Windows XP -Service Pack 3 which would solve all his performance related issues. He started using Windows XP and soon realized the tremend us improvement in the performance without the need of spending on new hardware.

The speed related issues can arise in any OS if it’s not timely maintained. Flooding the OS with applications, insecure / infected system, too much fragmentation, e.t.c can disrupt the system from working with it’s real capability. Earlier, i have written articles of how to use your computer with it’s “actual speed“. You can very well check them out.

Above all of these, there exists an application that significantly makes additional RAM available temporary stopping services that are not at all needed. The app is called as Game Booster, a freeware program to make additional RAM available for playing games or for loading heavy programs. When you are done playing games you can very well revet to the Normal mode which will restore all the temporary stopped services.