All not quiet on the computer front

According to one statistics, businesses all over the world lost $13 billion in 2001 due to virus attacks, $20 billion in 2002 and $55 billion in 2003.

These figures though give little hint about the losses resulting from the time lost in dealing with the increasing flood of spam or from a basic lack of training among users. Learning how to protect one's may therefore save a lot of time, labour and money.

The wild wild net
Most of us are more or less aware of viruses. But as security threats have grown to encompass more and more viruses, experts have adopted the term 'Malware'-- combining the words "malicious" and "software"-- to describe all malicious code. Combating this seething infesting stew of invaders requires defence in depth multiple barriers between the ever-increasing swarm of malware and your system.

In this article, we will be discussing what a lay end user, especially those connected to the Internet, can do to protect their work and the smooth secured operation of their machine.

Viruses
Just over 67,000 different viruses have been identified up to the present date. The most recent types of virus were able to infect millions of machines in just a few days and to completely paralyse the Net. The only solution for system protection: not to open e-mail attachments from unknown senders and to install good anti-virus software on every computer, updating it regularly via an Internet connection. The best two products in this area are : Norton (http:// www. symantec.com) and McAfee (http://us.mcafee com). Always install the latest version and apply latest updates from their website.

Security Holes
All Operating Systems have their defects, whether you work with Windows, Mac or Linux. Windows is particularly affected because Microsoft software is installed on more than 90% of the world's personal computers. This is why software developers, especially Microsoft, publish frequent updates for the user to download, free of charge. The importance of installing these updates cannot be overemphasised.

Trojans
Most people harbour the belief that anti-virus software means their system is secure, totally protected from 'Trojan Horses' and other threats and malwares. Trojans reserve one of the ports of your machine and assigns it an IP that the hacker can then use to get into your machine, to take control of it and to consult, change or attack all the data that he wants to, or perhaps turn your machine into a 'zombie'.

Two steps are essential to protect one's system. First one is to install a 'Firewall' on your computer. For this purpose, the best and most widely acclaimed software for effective system protection is 'ZoneAlarm Pro' (vers: 4.5 or 5). A somewhat shrunken and permanent 'free' version of ZoneAlarm is also available (http://www.zonelabs.com). All these may not apply to users of Windows XP (sp1) , which comes with a built-in non-permission-based firewall of its own, which silently works behind the scenes.

IMPORTANT: Never use more than one firewall at the same time. If you want to change an existing one, then uninstall it first (in case of the built-in XP one, you can turn it off).

Secondly, you need to employ specialised software that can be used to examine your hard disk, to search for and clean Trojans that may already have been installed, and even to block their installation in the first place. One of these programmes is TDS-3 (http://www.diamondcs.com.au).

Spyware
While the Internet is a powerful resource and provides users with many useful and often entertaining things to see and do, what many users may not realise is that some of those 'things' may contain code or components, called spyware, that allow the developers of these applications and tools to actually collect and disseminate information about those using them.

The main problem with antispyware tools [AS] is that they are still in their infancy and no single application can give you complete protection. They are still not as smart at their job as antiviruses are at theirs. The following are four antispyware apps, widely recognised as the finest in this field.

Webroot Spy Sweeper (www.webroot.com)

McAfee Antispyware (www.mcafee.com)

SpywareBlaster-3.1 (www.javacoolsoftware.com)

Lavasoft Ad-aware-6.181 (www.lavasoftusa.com/ default.shtml.en)

CAUTION: Never use the oft-recommended A.S. "Spybot-Search and Destroy'.

Spam
Increasing numbers of unsolicited e-mails are arriving in our e-mail Inboxes. There is a double inconvenience: not only might these messages contain viruses and/or spyware but also we must dedicate considerable time every day to eliminating them.

Eliminating Spam
Both 'Microsoft Outlook' and 'Outlook Express' enable you to 'kill' e-mails on the server before receiving them by creating message rules using the Tools box. You can also install spam blocking software on your PC if you are using POP3 client. The best product in this area is Cloudmark's 'SpamNet' (coudmark.com) and for POP3 client 'Aladdin Systems SpamCatcher 3+' (aladdinsys.com) is probably the best choice.

Hoaxes
With increasing frequency, internet users receive e-mails asking for passwords, addresses, account numbers, help, offers of attractive deals or urging to download some important piece of software etc under various pretexts from sources pretending to be legitimate or familiar. No software can protect you from this type of hoax. Only critical thinking on your part can help you avoid falling into the trap and protect your system in these situations.

Some basic precautions in handling e-mails
If your work e-mail address needs to be in the public domain and if attachments are expected then establish and restrict yourself to a minimum number of work-relevant acceptable file-types (e.g. *.txt, *.doc,*.jpg, *.pdf, or whatever) of your own choice. NEVER open any attachment with an unknown file extension or with any extensions/suffixes like : .exe, .bat, .pif, .vbs, .scr, .com , etc.

Disable 'script' and 'html' options of your e-mail programme.

Your data's your asset
For a person whose main or an important work tool is the computer, the documents stored on his PC hard disk comprise his capital par excellence, whether they are documents in the process , reference documents, glossaries, invoices, memos, address books, e-mails, spreadsheet files, database, images or whatever. Backing up your everyday data is a necessity. Proper maintenance of your system is also mandatory. If you install lots of games, audio and video files, holiday photos, etc on your work machine you will reduce the working speed of your machine and increase the risk of conflicts between various software products.

Defragment your hard disks regularly. This increases the speed of data access.

Eliminate unwanted files regularly. To do this, there is an excellent piece of free software called Easy Cleaner (http:// www.easycleaner.tk).

Afterthoughts
If you are using Windows-XP, when you scan your entire system or an entire drive with S.S.s, turn off the 'System Restore' option temporarily before running the scan. Turn it on after the scan/cleaning is finished.

Arif Ahmed is a freelance writer