Bit Defender Archives - The Silicon Underground

Some computer maintenance for the upcoming family get-togethers

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 10:00:42 +0000

If you’re like me and do some computer maintenance for families during holiday weekends, the time to plan Easter computer maintenance is now. Here’s some stuff I recommend doing to keep your non-computer-enthusiast relatives’ systems running smoothly. Be sure to

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The men (boys) who spy on women through webcams

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:00:11 +0000

Ars Technica made a bit of a splash this week with this provocative headline. This is real. The article gives the usual advice, like not opening e-mail from strangers, not clicking attachments from strangers, and not visiting dodgy websites. That’s

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If you’re suddenly seeing obnoxious banner ads on Facebook…

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:30:19 +0000

It’s not Facebook, it’s you. You’ve got malware. The malware is called Page Rage and Drop Down Deals. Head to this page to disable Page Rage, and this page to uncheck everything related to Drop Down Deals. And if you’re

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Don’t fall for the new Facebook stalker scam

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 02:00:46 +0000

According to trusted antivirus vendor Sophos, there’s a rogue Facebook application, posing as an app that claims to reveal a way to see who’s been secretly viewing your profile. It’s a scam. And it’s spreading rapidly. It posts messages on

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How to clean an MBR and recover drive partitions

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 12:51:05 +0000

Sometimes it’s necessary to recover drive partitions because you accidentally repartitioned a drive you didn’t mean to, or because your MBR got infected or otherwise trashed. Here’s how to recover them, for free. Infecting MBRs with malware is popular with

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MBR rootkits don’t mean you have to wipe the drive

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:09:05 +0000

There’s a nasty rumor going around that if your computer gets infected with the Popureb rootkit, your only recourse is to wipe your MBR, reformat your hard drive, and reinstall (or run your factory recovery disk, which is essentially the

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First impressions: Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:16:08 +0000

Microsoft has released an antivirus/antispyware live CD that runs in the Windows PE environment called Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. I wouldn’t use it as a full replacement for a Linux-based live CD from an antivirus vendor such as Bit Defender,

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Removing the Windows XP Repair scareware

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:35:39 +0000

Windows XP Repair is a fake system optimization and repair tool. It takes over the computer almost completely, and it’s a pain to remove. Worse yet, there’s at least one version floating around right now that standard no antivirus/antimalware tool

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