antivirus Archives

Cleaning a PC when fdisk-format-reinstall isn’t an option

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized September 24, 2015September 19, 2015antivirus, chrome, defragmenter, malware, malwarebytes, psi, ublock

There are any number of pie-in-the-sky pundits who will tell you when a computer starts to get slow, to format the hard drive, reinstall Windows, and go on your merry way.

Unfortunately it’s not always realistic. I don’t clean up PCs all that often anymore, but here’s what I do when I need to.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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Use this file to find out how much your antivirus is protecting you

Dave Farquhar security September 2, 2015August 31, 2015antivirus, home improvement, malware

Unlike some security professionals, I still regard antivirus as a necessity. It doesn’t catch advanced threats, and everything it does catch can be caught through other methods, but it is the most cost- and labor-effective way to catch the best-known, least sophisticated attacks. If you put a $100,000 incident responder to work hunting ordinary viruses, you’ll waste a lot of money on salary and quickly lose that incident responder to another company offering more interesting work.

Of course, there’s a great deal of discussion in the mainstream computer magazines about which antivirus is the best. I don’t agree with their methodology though–they might as well be looking for the longest 8-foot 2×4 at the home improvement store. Yes, you can probably find some variance if you get out a micrometer, but what have you accomplished?

SANS has a good real-world test to see how much protection your antivirus software is really giving you.

Dave Farquhar

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Application whitelisting on Windows, even home editions

Dave Farquhar security August 5, 2015November 29, 2015antivirus, Australia, malware, Microsoft Office, NSA, spyware, Whitelist

One of the very best things security measures you can take is application whitelisting–limiting the apps that are allowed to run on your computer.

The Australian Signals Directorate–the Australian counterpart to the NSA–says doing four things cuts security incidents by a whopping 85 percent. You probably do three of the things. The fourth is application whitelisting.

use application whitelisting to help prevent malicious software and unapproved programs from running
patch applications such as Java, PDF viewers, Flash, web browsers and Microsoft Office
patch operating system vulnerabilities
restrict administrative privileges to operating systems and applications based on user duties.

Dave Farquhar

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Five things security experts do vs. five things non-experts do

Dave Farquhar security August 2, 2015December 5, 2015antivirus, breach, malware, passwords, Two-factor authentication

There was a fair bit of talk last week about a study that compared security advice from security experts versus security advice from people who are at least somewhat interested but don’t live and breathe this stuff.

There were significant differences in the answers, and a lot of security professionals panned the non-expert advice. I don’t think the non-expert advice was necessarily bad. Mostly it was out of date.

Dave Farquhar

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How to keep your Android from being hacked by a text message

Dave Farquhar Android, security July 31, 2015July 30, 2015android, antivirus

In case you haven’t heard, it’s possible to hack into about a billion Android phones by sending them a text message with a specially crafted picture or video attached.

Google has a fix. The carriers and phone makers are taking their sweet time pushing it out. They may never do it. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Dave Farquhar

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uBlock settings for better malware protection

Dave Farquhar security July 28, 2015October 2, 2016antivirus, chrome, malware, Malware Domains, ublock

I have some easy uBlock settings to improve how it protects you against malware. You don’t think of ad blockers as a security tool? I do. It’s a good idea to use one even if you configure it to allow most ads through.

My favorite ad-blocking extension for Chrome is uBlock, because it’s faster and more resource friendly than the better-known Adblock Plus. It also comes configured by default to block known malicious sites, where Adblock Plus makes you dig for that feature.

But it’s still possible to tweak uBlock to give you even better protection against malware, and that’s a good thing. It’s one thing to detect malware and block it after you download it. But it’s even better to detect and block it before you download it in the first place. That keeps you safe if your antivirus software is slow to update for any reason.

Dave Farquhar

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Lenovo is penitent, but its customers aren’t out of the woods yet

Dave Farquhar security March 9, 2015March 8, 2015antimalware, antivirus, Bing, lenovo, malware, spyware, Windows 10, windows 8

After having an incredibly bad week last month, Lenovo started saying the right things, and perhaps doing some of the right things too. But some laptops with the Superfish malware preinstalled on them are still in the supply chain, which means some people are unwittingly buying them.

This isn’t terribly surprising. But there are a couple of things you can do about it, and they’re things worth doing anyway.

Dave Farquhar

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You’re telling me someone gave a stranger his password?

Dave Farquhar security February 17, 2015January 23, 2022Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, antivirus, breach, hp, IBM, LinkedIn, malware, passwords

I was talking breaches last week when a very high-up joined the conversation in mid-stream.

“Start over, Dave.”

“OK. I’m talking about breaches.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” he said, knowingly and very clearly interested.

Dave Farquhar

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“It was a sophisticated attack.”

Dave Farquhar security February 9, 2015February 6, 20151980s, antivirus, breach, command prompt

Every breach report contains the words “sophisticated attack.” Security pros like me see it as pure spin. Here’s why.

Dave Farquhar

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Why Google ratting on Microsoft isn’t all bad

Dave Farquhar security January 2, 2015January 1, 2015antivirus, Patch Tuesday, vulnerability, windows 8

This week, Google published a vulnerability in Windows 8.1 after a 90-day countdown timer automatically expired. Microsoft has not yet released a patch.

Controversy ensued. Obviously, yes, an unpatched, well-known vulnerability in Windows is troubling. But the alternative is worse.

Dave Farquhar

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