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Welcome to the Viruswarning forums. All your original content has been ported to the new forums as well as new content and additional opportunities to interact with the authors of Viruswarn.com. You can always access old content at www.leedrake.com/forum . You may find some formatting was lost in the conversion and the older versions of the posts to be more readable....
But at least it's all here.
Enjoy!
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Viruswarn Forums
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Lee Drake
Posts:238
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| 01/09/2003 11:13 AM |
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Each year, we send out a non-virus warning to all our subscribers reviewing the year, and making some recommendations for your next year of safe computing. We thank you all for your support and your encouragement over the years. We also thank you for your patience with the occasional technical mailing list hiccup that specifically plagued us this year :) So far this list has helped hundreds of people to properly lock down their systems, pay attention to virus and worm security, and enjoy their computers in safety. We've gotten many many emails from people thanking us for saving their computers from the ravages their friend's systems have been through.
This newsletter is sponsored by 3 companies:
Aztek Computer Solutions, Inc. - www.azcomputer.net
P6 Consulting - www.p6c.com
Periwinkle Communications, LLC - www.toto.com
Our goal is to help end users and administrators identify new or virulent viruses, worms, and security threats in a way that is easy to understand, and spells out specific steps to avoid or minimize the threat. We also like to keep folks informed about hoaxes that they might see as well. We're NOT a be all and end all list. We'd have to release a new warning every day to list all the viruses that come out. We just sort of like to "hit the high points" - those issues most likely to affect you as an end user or administrator.
As always, this service is free of charge, open to anyone who wishes to subscribe, and you will get no advertisements during the normal course of operations. This missive is our once a year "solicitation" if you can call it that - and even this one will contain valuable information. Solicitation you say? What's that? All we ask is that, if you hear of a job or project that fits our company's specific skills (you can see those detailed on our respective websites) you give one of us a call or reference.
So on with the advice for the coming year:
I won't repeat the advice from last year's missive (except in summary), you can get the full text at our forum archive at:
http://www.leedrake.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=138
The basic advice still applies:- Have new, up to date antivirus software. The newest version of Norton Antivirus for instance protects against viruses that might spread via email, icq, MSN messenger, AIM, etc. It's well worth the minimal cost to upgrade to the newest version each year when your virus subscriptions expire.
- Keep your virus signatures up to date, and check periodically to ensure that they are auto-updating properly
Get a good hardware or software firewall and use it. Hardware firewalls are dirt cheap now, and software firewalls are ever more reliable and easy to use. If you are a heavy internet user, get both for the "belt and suspenders approach".
- Update your machine using windowsupdate if it's a windows machine, and using your Linux vendors patch management system if it's a Linux machine. The newest versions of internet explorer will automatically check and download new patches for you. If you have that little globe in the system tray reminding you to apply an update - do it ASAP.
- Be sure your email is set to the "RESTRICTED" zone, and be sure that it's set by default to prevent you from opening dangerous attachments.
There are some new pieces of advice we have for 2003:- Avoid file sharing solutions such as KaZaa. We have seen a huge jump in the number of viruses that spread using file sharing programs, a large number of trashed and compromised systems, and a huge hit on people's internet performance. The lure of free music (most of which is also illegal) should not tempt you to open up your machine to a new vector for viruses. If you're a system admin we recommend blocking KaZaa at your firewall, and if you're an end user we strongly recommend purging it from your machine, or better yet never installing it. Think about it - you're opening up a share on your computer for other people to put files on - it's sort of like saying "Go ahead - infect me" :)
- Keep your instant messaging components up to date. Just like your email an attachment through ICQ, AIM, or MSN can all contain viruses. Don't open files sent to you through these vectors if they are exectuable programs, or if you're not expecting the attachment. New viruses will read your instant messaging database and send themselves to everyone in your contact list. Be sure you have the latest version of these programs running on your machine to minimize security risks.
- New viruses deactivate programs such as Norton, Zone Alarm and McAfee as soon as they execute. This makes it ever more important to keep your signatures up to date, enable advanced Heuristics, be careful of incoming executable programs, and vigilant to the presence of your antivirus icon in your system tray - if it's not there, chances are it got shut down and you're infected.
- Be aware of hoaxes. Any number of hoaxes are floating around on the internet, some of which can damage your computer. If you have a question about a message someone sends you (The typical message tells you to forward it to everyone you know - a big red flag), we recommend you check Norton or McAfee's hoax sites first to be sure you're not about to be the victim of a "trust system" virus. What's a trust system virus? One where the Virus author trusts you to do the damage then forward the virus to all your friends. :) Here are some sites to check first:
http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/hoax.html
http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
- If you're running one of the newer operating systems such as Windows 2000 or XP there are frequently security issues that are opened up as soon as you install - unnecessary services that are running, security holes that need closing, etc. Microsoft has created an easy to use tool that scans your system and tells you what needs shutting down, modifying or securing. The tool is called the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, and it will only work with Windows 2000 or above computers. You can get the tool at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/Security/tools/tools/MBSAHome.ASP
If you don't feel confident running the tool, or implementing the recommended changes, we recommend you find someone who IS confident with it and have them run it on your machine.
- If you're still running Windows 98, Windows ME, or Windows 95 - it's a good time to consider upgrading to a new machine, or upgrading your existing machine to Windows XP. These operating systems are far less secure than XP, and as Microsoft moves them to end of life products over the next couple of years, you'll find it increasingly hard to keep them updated and secure. Brand new machines with XP on them can be had for $600-$700 with a monitor these days. Memory, hard drives, motherboards and processors have never been cheaper. Seriously consider budgetting to replace your aging system in the next year or so if you're running one of these older OSes. In the case of windows 95, the newest version of Norton Antivirus won't even run on older versions of the OS.
Again, thank you for your time and for being a loyal Viruswarning subscriber. Let's hope that 2003 keeps all of us safe, happy and up to date worldwide!
Lee Drake
Aztek Computer Solutions, Inc.
39 N. Goodman St.
Rochester, NY 14607
E: ldrake@azcomputer.net
W: www.azcomputer.net
For subscription information check out: http://www.leedrake.com/virus_notification.htm
Check out the new Viruswarning forums at: www.leedrake.com/forum
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