Antivirus

Hi John and Everybody.
John, I am sure I would speak on behalf of many who have been reading this thread in thanking you for your great contribution to the benefit of those of us who are not so computer savvy. Therefore, perhaps you could give us the benefit of your experience (along with anyone else who would like to post) in explaining what would be the percentage risk of a personal or small business PC becoming badly affected by the sort of infections you describe.

To someone with a home PC it would seem to me that all they can do is install a good antivirus and Internet security program. For small businesses with perhaps more than six computers all they can do is to again install good software and as we do contract a good and established computer maintenance person/company to regularly inspect and maintain the system. Large companies usually have their own computer personnel and systems, but even they seem to be vulnerable to attack with press reports of several large American and European companies having their systems brought down by infection which is sometimes suspected as being sponsored by hostile governments.

With the above in mind, is there any Internet site that anyone is aware of which can give assessments of virus infection which have been produced by persons trained in numeric risk assessment. I state the above because as someone working in industrial safety it is through numeric risk assessment that companies we deal with gauge the amount of time and resources they should put into accident prevention based on the operations they are carrying out. However, I have never seen or been made aware of anything similar in the computer industry even though people advise all too often on the high risks and dangers of virus infection.

Also John, further to your earlier posting I am due to retire on the 28[SUP]th[/SUP] of this month with recruitment problem being solved and the sale of the business coming into the final stages right now. So there’s going to be one hell of a swansong party on the 28[SUP]th[/SUP] followed by a long holiday which just might see us in your part of the world.

Bill
 
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I can't find these on my PC ... but I am deleting them via Malwarebytes log page: Remove All

PUP.Optional.1ClickDownload.A - Registry key - HKCU\Software\1ClickDownload
PUP.Optional.SweetIM.A - Registry Value - HKLM\Software\Software\SweetIM|simapp_id
PUP.Optional.SweetIM.A - Registry Key - HKLM\SOFTWARE\SWEETIM
 
I can't find these on my PC ... but I am deleting them via Malwarebytes log page: Remove All

PUP.Optional.1ClickDownload.A - Registry key - HKCU\Software\1ClickDownload
PUP.Optional.SweetIM.A - Registry Value - HKLM\Software\Software\SweetIM|simapp_id
PUP.Optional.SweetIM.A - Registry Key - HKLM\SOFTWARE\SWEETIM

Thats the whole idea; they are designed so that they are hidden and they will try to to reinstall themselves if possible.
 
Now that they are held in Malwarebytes Quarentine I presume they are safely disabled ... should you remove an item, and then permanently delete it ... you might find that it was only a false positive, and should only have quarentined, and later have been re-enstated ... so I plan on testing my PC for a while ... and if everything works ok, then I will Delete All.
 
Now that they are held in Malwarebytes Quarentine I presume they are safely disabled ... should you remove an item, and then permanently delete it ... you might find that it was only a false positive, and should only have quarentined, and later have been re-enstated ... so I plan on testing my PC for a while ... and if everything works ok, then I will Delete All.

Delete them. They are not doing anything have been moved out of the way. Besides, why would you want that garbage in your system anyway.

John
 
Currently using Kaspersky, it works but HOGS BANDWIDTH LIKE A MOTHA! Dell XPS17 Win7Pro, i7-2720qm, NVidia GT555M + 8GB. Want to switch back to McAfee as delivered. Thoughts, local pro John?
 
Have used ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5 in the last 3 years, now using version 6 under a yearly paid subscription and haven't looked back at any other AV since. Performance wise for real-time resource usage I found ESET uses about 0.10% CPU/Memory. On a full system scan or manual use it averages around 20% - 35% of CPU usage on my beefed up high end system.

What ever is in your favor, whether or not it's worth considering when searching for a reliable AV software.
 
Hi John and Everybody.
John, I am sure I would speak on behalf of many who have been reading this thread in thanking you for your great contribution to the benefit of those of us who are not so computer savvy. Therefore, perhaps you could give us the benefit of your experience (along with anyone else who would like to post) in explaining what would be the percentage risk of a personal or small business PC becoming badly affected by the sort of infections you describe.

To someone with a home PC it would seem to me that all they can do is install a good antivirus and Internet security program. For small businesses with perhaps more than six computers all they can do is to again install good software and as we do contract a good and established computer maintenance person/company to regularly inspect and maintain the system. Large companies usually have their own computer personnel and systems, but even they seem to be vulnerable to attack with press reports of several large American and European companies having their systems brought down by infection which is sometimes suspected as being sponsored by hostile governments.

With the above in mind, is there any Internet site that anyone is aware of which can give assessments of virus infection which have been produced by persons trained in numeric risk assessment. I state the above because as someone working in industrial safety it is through numeric risk assessment that companies we deal with gauge the amount of time and resources they should put into accident prevention based on the operations they are carrying out. However, I have never seen or been made aware of anything similar in the computer industry even though people advise all too often on the high risks and dangers of virus infection.

Also John, further to your earlier posting I am due to retire on the 28[SUP]th[/SUP] of this month with recruitment problem being solved and the sale of the business coming into the final stages right now. So there’s going to be one hell of a swansong party on the 28[SUP]th[/SUP] followed by a long holiday which just might see us in your part of the world.

Bill


Hi Bill,

I'm no "expert" at these things, however, I have worked in the IT industry for quite some time. From what I have experienced, and read about from various sources, the biggest prevention of malware attacks is education. Having the guards, i.e., the antivirus and firewalls in place is only a part of the picture, and a small part of the picture. When I was an working as a technician, I used to educate my users regarding various aspects of computer security. I showed them how to mitigate their exposure to malware, and how to recognize when something was not Kosher. While at the former Polaroid spin-off, I supported close to 200 people at one time, and we hardly had any malware infections. The good antivirus product in place, which we kept up-to-date not only on the servers, but also on the desktops, along with employee education, helped keep the infections down. This is the biggest problem in large companies. They don't take the time to educate the employees on malware prevention, and instead rely on the guards at the door to protect the fort. It's a two, or in reality a three-part system that works best.

Here is an interesting link to a company called Knowbe4. This company was founded by Stu Sauerman former CEO of Sunbelt Software. He left when Sunbelt was acquired by GFI systems a few years ago. I have spoken with Stu personally and actually knew him before he worked with Sunbelt. He and Alex Eckleberry founded Sunbelt and brought that company up into the top-notch malware fighting companies.

http://www.knowbe4.com/

Today, Stu's new company does lectures to employees and management to assist them in fighting malware. He assists with network and system security compliance. which as you know is extremely important today.

Regarding statistics this is a difficult one. Each antivirus company has their own methods for tracking the so-called current threat levels, and to add insult to injury, they also have different names for the same malware. It would be nice if a group such as the IEEE or ANSI developed a consistent naming convention for malware as that would help everyone not only track the malware but also with the reporting.

What is interesting too is how the industry, both on the malware creators' and fighters' side has changed. According to the industry experts, the current wave of malware is created from a social engineering point of view. In the old days viruses destroyed their hosts where as today the goal is to maximize the investment by the malware creators. They aim to get the biggest crowd and gain the most monetarily. They use the common and familiar infection avenues, called vectors, such as social websites like Facebook, for example, or links within emails, to infect users. Again, educating the users to be suspicious of particular links, and how to use the common sense when navigating the web really does help. I have done this with not just my own immediate family, but many other people I have helped over the years. Because of my end-user education, we see very little malware intrusions in my house, or even amongst the people I have trained.

Most home users aren't so lucky, and probably have the most difficult task as they do not know how to fight the infections, and don't have the resources available to them such as the IT staff at large companies. Then again most IT staff are overworked. Heck, when I was at Oracle, I was supporting 680 fulltime employees at my location alone with one other person, and this didn't happen until I hurt myself at work. Then they brought in a contractor to help. The work level there is constant and really hectic, and we weren't just fighting viruses. That was a small sub-section of our daily support. We also were rolling out upgrades, performing disk encryption, and many other break-fix tasks that in reality really needed a staff or 4 or 6 people for that many employees. Biggest part of the equation is cost. Training people costs a lot of money, and this is one of the reasons, I think, that companies rely on the guards instead of the education, and probably why there are so many infections at the big companies.

This as you can see, Bill is a big fish to fry with so many aspects of it that we've barely scratched the surface of. It takes more than just a good antivirus product and an occasional visit from the IT staff to keep machines in tiptop clean working order.

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement. I am truly happy for you!

John
 
John has provided some pretty good advice on a serious topic. Here In Australia, one of the good things the federal government does is to provide an alert service on current scams and issues. Its a subscriber service and I'm sure other countries will do the same. It might be worth investigating.

I use Trend Micro Titanium and that works for me. It comes with a firewall and that can need a little managing but is not difficult.

The earlier comment about smart TVs (internet enabled) got me thinking. While a virus for those devices is probably of less concern than a PC infection, there are other aspects that could be an issue. Imagine if someone managed to "update" your smart TV with a rogue software update that included code to monitor what you watch. I saw an article recently where a company used Facebook data to identify what people watched on TV and when. That data was allegedly used during the last U.S. presidential election to target TV ads.

One of the devices I like to use is a Kindle to read electronic books. When I later installed the Kindle software on my iPad, the software asked me if I wanted it to update the ebook reading positions on my iPad from my Kindle. Big brother may, or may not, be watching, but Amazon is.

A bit scary at times. :eek:
 
Hi John,pcas1986 and everybody.
Once again John thank you for making this thread one of the most informative I personally have ever seen on this forum throughout the years I have been a member and I am sure others feel the same.

First in responding can I quickly comment on pcas1986 posting regarding Smart TVs. The scenario he envisages regarding data on viewing habits being collected by the TV manufacturers and content providers is already happening. Lovefilm, Netflicks, LG and the latest “now TV” (which is really sky online and launched this week) all collect data on what you watch which enables them to “suggest” programmes which may be of interest to you next time you switch on. So, Big Brother really is watching (LOL)

Regarding what John was advising on malware and viruses I would totally agree this is a huge subject in which so few have any grasp of the real problems and I would include myself in that. As was stated the person with a laptop or PC at home probably has the most difficult problem regarding protection. To lose your trainz content or even the whole programme would certainly be very annoying but would not in all seriousness be the end of the world. However, there are many people these days work from home either in their own businesses or for an employer. To them the loss of files could be catastrophic to say the least and could easily cost them their job or business.

On top of the above you now have many thousands of small to medium-size businesses which have launched in the last few years throughout Britain and I believe America and are now leading the recovery from recession with new jobs and opportunities for many. From my own experience with my own company, every effort has to go into finding work, ensuring that the work produces a profit which substantiates your own living and allows you to pay the wages of those you employ.

With all the above in mind, many small business owners do not have the time to think about computer security regarding viruses, malware etc. As in the case of myself and I am sure many others, to leave home at six in the morning and not return until nine or ten at night has not been an unusual event over the last eight years. The foregoing as John so rightly states, leaves the office computers at risk but that is certainly not the end of it.

Britain’s railways have become travelling offices for its ever-increasing numbers of passengers. In that we use the on-board Wi-Fi of the operating companies as well as the 3G and now 4G of the mobile networks through our laptops and tablets. I doubt if any of those travellers including myself know if those systems are secure but regardless of that you have to use them as they have become an essential integrated part of business life in Britain and throughout Europe.

The burgeoning new private business community can only provide the resources that they can within their budgets with regard to computer security. Many companies including my own do not allow staff to use the office computers on the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The foregoing is usually covered under threat of severe disciplinary action should this rule be disregarded. Outside of that there would seem to be little that small and middle sized businesses can do other than having good anti-virus and Internet security programs on their computers and servers within their offices and trusting to luck and the powers that be outside of them. I would totally agree that staff training would be the best way forward but it is often that the resources to finance this are not available in smaller companies.

The above was the reason I suggested that numeric risk assessment could be carried out on viruses and malware whenever these are discovered and would provide company managements with a far better idea of risk of infection as well as the damage that could occur if they are computers are infected. I will not go into how numeric risk assessment is carried out as I do not wish this posting to go on any longer. However I would be happy to post separately on it or to any member by personal email if requested.

As John stated, this is a huge and serious subject to which the eyes of many of us are only just being opened

Bill
 
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Anybody have avast! I think it's a pretty good program.
Speaking of viruses, paulztrainz seems to be infected.

AVAST is not a bad program. I've used it off and on in the past on various systems that came with it. When the trial ran out, I went with what I had purchased previously since I already had a license or a multiple license I could use on several systems at once.

I've seen reports about Paulz Trainz. That's too bad.

John
 
Red

How good or bad is Trend Micro?

I have used Trend Micro and later versions for about ~15 years now and can only say it works well for me. It does not seem to have any effect on frame rates. I would rate it as 10 out of 10

Peter
 
Here's an interesting article regarding Cybersecurity Trust by consumers.

http://www.threattracksecurity.com/blogs/cso/consumers-cybersecurity-trust-is-earned-not-given/

Threat Track Security is now the owner of Vipre Antivirus. GFI sold off their security software, meaning Vipre and other products and this is the new company that owns this former division.

There are other interesting articles here on malware and network security with much of it pertaining to the earlier posts in this thread.

John
 
I don't know how many products Trend Micro has but I used and payed for "Trend Micro" for many years. Then a malware hit hard and took out my Trend Micro. After I put my system back together rather than go with Trend Micro again I went with free Microsoft Security essentials. I back it up with free manual scans from Malwarebytes and Trend Micro's Housecall. Housecall seems to work well.
 
Hi Everybody.
With reference to John Citroen’s great informative postings on this thread I decided to organize an IT security seminar on the Saturday prior to the one just gone (the seventh of September) our contract computer guy (Mark) who has serviced are computers since the start of the business in 2006 gave a presentation to the staff, took questions and gave advice to them with regard to computer security within the business which he also felt would be applicable to their home PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. At the presentation I handed to him copies of the postings John had made on this thread all of which Mark 100% agreed with.

What we all found very interesting was the statement Mark made about antivirus applications. In that he stated that all antivirus programs will fail at times because they are reactive to viruses, malware and Trojans that have already appeared on the Internet. To clarify, in that he meant that viruses etc have to be in circulation (sometimes quite widespread circulation) before they are picked up by the anti-virus software producers and protection brought forward for their for the customers. Although the foregoing would seem to be obvious not too many people in the room had thought that through and realised it.

Mark also then spoke on smart phones and tablets which run programs which enable the user to control PCs remotely. He advised that the android system had been compromised several times to his knowledge in the recent past with viruses which are passed through to PCs using the above programs. These viruses do no damage to the android system itself but are designed to bypass the PCs security system through the remote access. We then realised that we have six smart phones and four tablets in the ownership of the company which use these programs (that certainly silenced the room)

Other advice he gave us: -
1) for European users, never use the on-board wi-fi on trains as these are not secure and are well known source of infection. Wait until you can get a 3 or 4G connection and use that which these days is almost everywhere And accessible from a train

2) when traveling outside the rail system always use always use the three or 4G connection of your laptop, smart phone or tablet and avoid free Wi-Fi hotspots from whatever source they come.

3) When searching on the Internet always try to use recognized well established sites. Along with that avoid visiting the personal websites of auction house sellers. The well-known auction sites themselves are in the main secure but the websites of the small sellers which prospective bidders are often invited to visit are perhaps one of the biggest spreaders of infections although that is not often Deliberate by the owners of the sites themselves.

With a Buffy and drinks laid on it was a great morning and many thanks to John Citroen without whose postings here it would never have come about. I do not know if John or any other forum member would like to post comments on the above but I would love to view any

Sorry I have not commented on this prior to today John, but preparing for retirement is turning out to be a 50 or 60 hour week job, plus you may have noticed I have had issues on other threads.


Bill
 
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An interesting post.

...
What we all found very interesting was the statement Mark made about antivirus applications. In that he stated that all antivirus programs will fail at times because they are reactive to viruses, malware and Trojans that have already appeared on the Internet. To clarify, in that he meant that viruses etc have to be in circulation (sometimes quite widespread circulation) before they are picked up by the anti-virus software producers and protection brought forward for their for the customers. Although the foregoing would seem to be obvious not too many people in the room had thought that through and realised it.
....

Bill

The point about anti-virus being reactive is well made but that seemed obvious to me many years ago. Perhaps it is because I used to write software for a living for a while. But I still feel more comfortable with a decent anti-virus and firewall system than without one. In any case my perception is that Internet scams, phishing, pin stealing devices on ATMs and card readers are more of a threat these days.

Just last week there was an incident where a charity worker handed over her corporate credit card to pay a taxi fare and the driver used a device on his reader to steal her pin. Within a few hours a card had been manufactured and money withdrawn from the account. I haven't heard if the police traced the driver but receipts may have provided a trace.

I understand the need for people to feel "connected" with smart phones but personally I would rather just have a mobile phone that only made and received voice calls. Although I admit text messages are useful.

Cheers
 
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