Think the words paranoid and obnoxious spring to mind.

You spend way to much time on geek sites researching every virus.

Me, I use common sense and have never been infected.

Actually, they only site I frequent that is more than slightly geeky is "EeeUser", although I have visited bleepingcomputer for help and advice in the past.

The tech site I was banned from was/is rapidly filling up with WOW and FPS saddos waving their willies about; prior to that it was mostly about hardware, not software.

As for common sense, you have no concerns that the worlds largest OS producer is so worried about the problem that they want to fundamentally change they way PCs boot??

With these new bios infecting viri, which I admit are pretty rare right now, it is only going to take one infection to write off your laptop, notebook or smartphone. PCs will be slightly better off in that the BIOS chip can be pulled and flashed back to an uninfected state.

As someone once said, there is no such thing as a LITTLE bit pregnant.

Are you ever gonna let this lie ???

You got your way, we got ours,

Are you this sulky in the real world when someone doesn't agree with your point of view or is it just an online thing.

I reckon we call it quits at that, Well, until the next thread.

Out of interest, MOST of the rootkits I have seen were on friends PCs running Norton, as installed by the PC manufacturer, I have yet to find a rootkit installed on one of these machines AFTER I have removed Norton and installed my usual av/am suite and told them how to update and use them. (Except my sister, who never updates and wonders why the new viri are never detected).

The rootkit on mine occurred after trying to access my favourite radio stream failed with FireFox, so I tried with IE......... I know, STUPID, I have deleted IE from my machine to avoid the temptation

Rootkits generally neet to be activated, so your friends have installed them - likely via a facebook hacked ap or similar common rootkit injection methods.

Same goes for your radio stream infection. The site was probably hacked and set with a payload which IE AND your chosen security apps welcomed onto your machine made it a coffee and gave it some biscuits as well. Not a good advert for your method of internet security.

It must have been a sophisticated hack, because I was talking to the web admin about why it wouldnt load (as it had been failing to load for several days at this point), I had been running a series of trace routes, and then he suggested trying IE as they had no one else reporting issues.

He also got me to turn off some of my security programs to see if one of them was causing the problem, well I soon realised one of them WAS blocking the site for a reason!!!

The hack wasnt on the main site, but a relay used to transfer radio streams, one step away from the main website. Since then I have paid more attention to details and informed several other sites when this particular programs starts blocking them.

The rootkits were a mix, the some were almost certainly user installed (children installing pirated games), but mine required nothing more than me trying to access the site without adequate protection, and I suspect the BBC Gardeners World one was the same, as the Little Old Lady invoved is too scared to install anything; I even had to install a new mouse when her old one wore out (a crappy BALL job supplied with a new DELL winbox running Vista??!!)

@Fatty, you are the one soundly sulky, I am trying to maintain a dialogue.

@Fatty, you are the one soundly sulky, I am trying to maintain a dialogue.

I'm not the one calling people names and shouting......

Hey guys... Take a chill pill.

Shouting at, and cussing each other solves nowt.

8 Intentional words in the last page of posts is hardly shouting, and one full sentence on the previous page, what can I say, I have big hands and keep hitting the caps lock key on my tiny netbook; sometimes I notice and go back and change it, and sometimes I cant be arsed.

I use CAPTIALS for emphasis because googleapis.com scripts sometimes gets blocked by the GFWoC and I have to block the lot to get the page to load; so formatting doesnt work correctly.

One of the down sides of living in China for 6 months.

Hi folks, im looking to buy some internet security, im running mc afee at the min but not impressed with it.

Any recommendations on what to get and where to get it from?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks, e

I've used AVG for years up until this year in fact when a close friend recommended using the free Ad-aware software. Works well, nice and free.

Also I use C-Cleaner to clean up, Malwarebytes to remove any unwanted malicious software.

Adaware doesnt cover the same area of security an AV program does, you need a memory resident AV program, so either install AVG or similar again, or register and pay for MalwareBytes.

....or MSE for free...

I have been using Kaspesky Internet Security for the last 4 years very easy to use and does not hog resources too much. I have previously used AVG free but got viruses as it can be slow to update.

If you look on line you can get some good deals on Kaspersky and other Security software, I managed to pick up a 3 user copy of Kspersky Internet Security 2011 for £14 and got the upgrade to their 2012 software.

Pays to shop around but from experience you get what you pay for especially in this day and age where there are so many threats around.

Gentle Giant...congratulations to you and the wife...only just seen your news at the bottom of your posts.

I'm bit of a Linux noob but isn't it the case that it's very difficult to execute a virus/malware file in a Linux environment unless the user is really determined to run a suspicious file? Linux may be in a small percentage of desktop PC's but it's huge elsewhere - 80% plus of the internet is run on linux web-servers, Google & Youtube run on Linux. Android is Linux based & from what I can gather virii are malicous apps folk are choosing to install not realising what they are letting themselves in for?

ross, it's very very difficult to infect a Linux based desktop or laptop, particularly as there are currently no known viruses or malware 'in the wild' that can infect your desktop or laptop. It's been estimated that Linux systems are around 40 times more secure than any Windows system. Not quite sure what that means but I know Linux is unbeatable for security. It's not like Windows or Mac. However, even if there were any Linux virus around, if you are sensible, you won't get infected easily or at all if you use some common sense because Linux has been built to be virus resistant. Even if Linux were to take over as the number one operating system, it won't suffer infections like Windows does because of how it's built. After all, Linux is one of the oldest OP's and it's been running the worlds biggest servers for years and has proven itself against the best virus writers in the business. It's been repeatedly targeted without success. Now with Ubuntu in particular, that security has made it very popular. 6 out of ten banks now say don't use a Windows computer to access your bank detail, use a Linux based system or an Android phone. I can't say much about Android phones as I don't deal with them, but I know it's not the operating system at fault if indeed Android is becoming weaker against viruses. The only reason you have a virus scanner on a Linux based system is to scan for Windows viruses so you do not pass them on to a Windows computer user. As you will know, Linux systems are immune to Windows viruses and malware. In 6 years of dealing solely with Linux systems and networks I have not once seen an infected Linux machine. Never seen any spyware or rootkits on a Linux machine either. But of course have seen them all on windows machines. I use Linux myself too. Most large organisations run one flavour of Linux or another. Windows is not secure enough especially at high levels. 12% of computer users overall in the uk use Linux of some sort and it's growing fast. This won't mean more infections but less on the net.

Isn't that pretty much unique to Android, rather than Linux overall - much like Windows?

Yes it is!

Thanks - any recommendations for AV/Firewall - on Linux?

Yes...go here Linux Ubuntu Link and scroll down to the virus scanner and firewall section. It's self explanatory, just copy and paste the commands into the terminal and it will take care of itself. Oh, this link is for Ubuntu 11.10 (I run this but other to do lists are there too) and it's a 'To do list' after installation. If you are using another Ubuntu or another distro search for the relevant to do list. It easy doing it that way. And don't be afraid of the terminal, although you don't have to use it at all if you don't want to. Just use the software centre in your Linux system if you prefer.

iptables but need knowledge of the CLI. It's what I use on Debian/Ubuntu servers.

I use GUFW which gives it a frontend gui. At the terminal prompt: ' sudo apt-get install gufw'. It loads ok from the software centre in Ubuntu though with no knowledge of the Terminal needed.

Edited 3 November, 201114 yr by Estate Man

AVG internet security 2012. Don't pay retail look on ebay.

Have this running on my XP and 7 machines.

Don't rely on just the free one as it won't stop malware.

The latest AVG is a lot less bloaty than the older versions.

I use GUFW which gives it a frontend gui. At the terminal prompt: ' sudo apt-get install gufw'. It loads ok from the software centre in Ubuntu though with no knowledge of the Terminal needed.

Excellent! Thanks. I'm running Mint & GUFW was already there - just needed to be enabled. I've also added ClamAV & a scan found nothing (no surprise!)

I'm running XP & 7 in Virtualbox & they both run MSE.

I've only been using Linux for a couple of years but Windows before that since 1999. I've never had a virus or malware (that I'm aware off!). Used to run Aladdin esafe, then AVG, then Avast before moving on to MSE.

Ross, good to know you are getting on ok with Mint. As you will know, it's highly resistant to virus or malware attack. Nothing can install without your permission. I've started to use Bitdefender as my virus scanner as Clamav Clamtk doesn't work correctly on the latest 'Unity' desktop on the latest version of Ubuntu. Once it's modified it will work fine though. PM me if you want a link to the Bitdefender repo and install instructions.

Mr Ferret, you are right about free virus scanners. Most are quite good particularly AVG but unfortunately, most free versions are not very good at removing big infections if they finds anything, often leaving a machine disabled. Many people learn this to their cost. kaspersky is about the best I've found and it scores consistently very high marks (usually right at the top) in tests conducted by mags such as Computer Shopper Labs, PC Pro etc. As has been mention in an earlier post, Barclays and some other banks now give it free to online customers because they are so concerned about people using Windows to access their bank accounts.

There are a few Linux threats out there, and one has been recently modded to attack OSX. Smart phones have also been infected, mostly through social websites. The mobile problems were first reported in China, but have started turning up in the west, although mostly on (jail-broken) iPhones. With the huge share gained by Android phones in the last year, it is only a matter of time before they are targetted, assuming the code is not already out there waiting to be noticed.

Most smart phone hacks so far are using the old, old trick of silently calling premium phone numbers, although a few also steal various data, and at least one tries to infect other phones using bluetooth.

Linux has been very safe from virus and malware primarily because it has a much smaller share of the market, so less potential profit; and the users are more tech savvy, and so much less likely to allow an infection; however, as it grows market share, it also increases the chance criminal gangs will decide it is worth targeting; especially as it becomes more user friendly, and less technically minded people start to use it.

As for servers running linux being safe, err, no. Go and read what happened to Linux.orgs own servers earlier this year.

When pace-makers and insulin systems can be hacked, nothing running code is 100% safe.

Ah, the man himself. How's married life?

Yep, I've heard of Android phones being hacked. but I don't have anything much to do with them. But it's not as bad as the Windows based phones according to what I'm reading. It may escalate though I guess. It's not actually true that Linux has been safe due to having less share of the market, that's a commonly used argument and a complete myth. It's largely down to how it's designed and managed. It's been targeted for years as the financial rewards are very very high indeed in the corporate and political world, and more recently the desktop world. I have for years, and still do manage Linux servers (it's just a profitable sideline for me now though) and have never ever had a problem with hacking or viruses for that matter. Few attacks on Linux servers have ever been successful. The few that have been successful have nearly always required an 'insider' to release code onto a machine, or just plain take information from the system. I'm not aware of the Linux.org breach or whatever, I'll take a look. But I've never said Linux servers are completely safe, but they are much safer than anything else. You are of course completely correct in saying no system is ever completely safe. Linux is without question the best there is for security but is not completely infallible. A few servers being attacked with some malicious code doesn't mean those threats are out in the wild. 100,000 watchers are still not detecting 'wild viruses' or malicous code in circulation. Linux machines particularly servers have to be attacked specifically to do any good. Not much good pinging for Linux.

EDIT: just taken a look at the latest reports and it seems the Linux.org hack was only able to take place due to a breach of a users root security login details. This is often the only way to make any meaningful way into a Linux machine. It's doubtful the server was breached to get that information. It's incredibly hard believe me. I've tried in all the conventional and not so conventional ways, in the course of my work unsuccessfully, and I have been trained in ethical hacking. I would point out the machine I was attempting to hack was a remote machine belonging to my organisation and that we had initially lost contact with.

Edited 4 November, 201114 yr by Estate Man

Hi EM,

I did say that most of the Linux hacks seem to have used "social" tricks to get the initial access; they have been a few reported bugs in the kernel over the last couple of years that were potential weaknesses, so were patched, but I agree that in general it is a lot safer.

The only reason I stick with Windows is I need to keep on top of what the idiots members of my family are doing to their PC's; in fact it is the only reason I built my first PC, trying to figure out what the HELL my mother was doing to bugger up the Office PC.

in the early days it was reasonably easy,

1/ she was saving every document to C:/

2/ Epson scan was saving every scan in 3 different file formats at the same time, and so using obscene amount of HDD space

3/ She kept ticking the "print to file" button, then hitting "Print" 2-300 times before calling me to say the printer wasnt working. (Actually, she STILL does this, 15 years after we got our first office PC).

I will save the fun story about my sister for later.

PS, married life is bliss. I dont know why I didnt marry a Chinese girl decades ago.

Yep...know what you mean about the family fun on computers!!! Sometimes not easy picking up the pieces. But it's a great way to learn stuff I found.

I stopped using Windows myself about two years ago for no other reason than I wanted to do more development work with software. I also got fed up of using bios locked OEM Windows (too tight to buy retail version!!) with limited license agreements that kept wanting me to re-register after I've upgrade my machine. So when I changed I got the added bonus of the extra security and the benefit of being able to do as I wish with my hardware. I been working with Linux of different flavours for several years and I've found it fascinating and quite liberating. If ever you want to try it, just dual boot it with your current Windows version. PM me if you want any pointers, although you sound as if you know what you are doing.

Glad you and the missus are in the land of bliss. Good on yer! :yes:

If the reports of this package are to be believed . .

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

None of the above are any good - I tried it on Kapersky and Norton - both showed large regions where there the machine is totally insecure when connected on-line.

I suspect if you tried to plug all the holes using software, the processing overhead would be such that either your machine wouldn't be able to process any application software or you'd need a dedicated on-board processor just to do the security routines.

Nick

Edited 5 November, 201114 yr by Clunkclick

Hi again EM, I do actually dual boot Ubuntu, but havent really had much time to play with it due to illness, even though i had it installed for about 6 months before I came out to china.

It is something I hope to have more time to explore when I return to the UK. FYI I was diagnosed with chronic ITP in 2009, and the fatigue associated has made life very difficult over the last 5-6 years; however since being out here I feel much better; there is a possibility that a food allergy plays a part in the illness (they dont really know much about it); so if i stick mostly to my lovely wifes Chinese cooking, and only eat Pizza once a month, i will probably be fine!!!

I feel so much better that I have the energy to start tai Chi; which isactually a LOT harder than it looks; I am bathed in sweat after a session with my tutor, and my thighs are usually on fire after 30 minutes!!!

Hi GG,

Sorry to hear you have been unwell. Not nice. But very glad you are progressing.

Like you I started with Ubuntu dual booted and found it fun. That was 7 years ago and now I am quite familiar with all versions but I would not say I'm an expert. Just quite knowledgeable. I don't use Windows at all now at home, but most of my work in local government is on Windows networks but I have a small Linux network that I look after and a trillion other linux machines too.

I found these links really fun and easy to follow when setting up my new Linux installations. It takes all the hard work out of it and it's how most people set there installations up now. I don't know which version you have but these are the most popular versions below. There are other versions with 'to do lists' also.

Ubuntu 10.04LTS To do list after installation

Ubuntu 11.04 To do list after installlation

Ubuntu 11.10 To do list after installation

Note: even hardened Linux fans rarely remember all the commands for the terminal and many just use the software centre or synaptic to install programs. I use the terminal because you can see what is going on more easily and if an error occurs it can always be sorted easily. Good luck if you go that way...I hope you do. You won't regret it. PM me if you need to.

Bests Ian

Thanks for the 'to do' links.

I do prefer Adobe's PDF reader so that was useful to find a Linux version. The main reason I have Windows installed on Virtualbox (got fed-up of dual-boot) is so I can use my Adobe Writer & Photoshop Elements, neither of which work under Wine. However I'm finding I can do most of the PDF editing & creating I need with PDF Shuffler & I use Gimp for most image stuff now, although I find the graphical colour variation adjustment in PSE easier to use, the odd time I need it. I need to see if I can find a plug-in for Gimp that offers the same.

It's also cool to freak out folk when they see me 'rotate' the screen from Mint to 7 to XP, all on at the same time!

Hi Ross, yep folk just don't realise how good Linux Ubuntu is. You can make GIMP do anything pretty much. In it's standard form it can do most things, but if there is something you want it to do that is awkward or it plain isn't configured to do it then just go the the gimp site and download the plugin you need. Don't forget the massive help on the net for Ubuntu and things like GIMP. The Ubuntu forums is also a good problem solving place and there are plenty of help links in Ubuntu too. But you prolly know all that.

Sorry to the original poster TDIe for bumping his post of subject a bit!!