Ask me anything about hack prevention

[Denismage]

I didn't see anything on these kind of threads in the rules, so I suppose they are allowed.

 

 

 

I'm willing to answer any questions regarding rats, botnets, keyloggers, stealers, crypters, downloaders, phishing, pharming, firewalls, antiviruses, wireless security and related. I'm not going to teach you how to make or do any malicious actions, but I will explain how you can protect yourself from getting infected/falling for one of the attacks.

 

 

 

If such threads aren't allowed, I won't mind if it's locked/deleted, it will be your loss, not mine. ;)

[Denismage]

Bump

[ClareJonsson]

Tell us about root kit infections, how they hide themselves and what's the best way to remove them.

[Denismage]

Tell us about root kit infections, how they hide themselves and what's the best way to remove them.

 

 

 

There are different types of rootkits, there are those that simply work at an application level, and those that work at kernel level. Application level rootkits are a lot easier to remove, although they inject into legit programs (or use other methods, but injecting seems to be popular now) They are easy to remove as they only modify the application (That depends on what's being modified though, but generally they are easy to remove).

 

The kernel level rootkits modify kernel of an OS, at that level it can basically do anything it pleases. The only problem is, the code needs to be 100% bug free otherwise the OS will crash. To remove kernel level rootkits you will need to boot up into another OS using a live cd or what a flash drive and do a scan from there.

[Pinkbullet3]

Since I'm not as computer savvy, I'll ask a relatively simple question.

 

 

 

What's your take on avast! antivirus, Spybot S&D, and COMODO firewall?

 

 

 

As you can tell, these were all free, so if you could recommend any better free programs if there are any, then that'd be appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks.

[Denismage]

Since I'm not as computer savvy, I'll ask a relatively simple question.

 

 

 

What's your take on avast! antivirus, Spybot S&D, and COMODO firewall?

 

 

 

As you can tell, these were all free, so if you could recommend any better free programs if there are any, then that'd be appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

For antiviruses and scanners it is very hard to pick because a FUD malware won't trigger any. I'd pick avira over avast, although avira has its share of false positives (1 month ago my hello world program with resource added later was detected a generic trojan, doubt anything changed) Of all AVs, I'd say kaspersky is the best. Spybot S&D is pretty good, I can't say anything about COMODO, but if it's a simple firewall without self defence that doesn't monitor injections, modification of critical components, changes to registry, network access and launching of changed executables I recommend against using it. By far the best firewall (although not free) is outpost firewall.

 

 

 

Here's something interesting for you to read:

 

 

 

http://www.infosecwriters.com/text_reso ... ngarae.pdf

[k00ldud95]

Lot of my friends tell me that all "security programs" like Norton and Adaware don't actually do anything that you couldn't easily do yourself, and that they are basically just a scam.

 

 

 

Is this true?

[Denismage]

Lot of my friends tell me that all "security programs" like Norton and Adaware don't actually do anything that you couldn't easily do yourself, and that they are basically just a scam.

 

 

 

Is this true?

 

 

 

Don't believe a word.

 

 

 

 

 

Norton is very bad though, I recommend against using it.

[aspokaspofkjsopfkapo]

Lot of my friends tell me that all "security programs" like Norton and Adaware don't actually do anything that you couldn't easily do yourself, and that they are basically just a scam.

 

 

 

Is this true?

 

If you don't have an antivirus right now then i'd reccomend downloading avira antivirus free it's a free antivirus with a high detection rate and low sys resource usage.

 

 

 

Once you get it do a full system scan.

[Georgelemmons]

Since I'm not as computer savvy, I'll ask a relatively simple question.

 

 

 

What's your take on avast! antivirus, Spybot S&D, and COMODO firewall?

 

 

 

As you can tell, these were all free, so if you could recommend any better free programs if there are any, then that'd be appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

Use Avira.

[ClareJonsson]

Tell us about root kit infections, how they hide themselves and what's the best way to remove them.

 

 

 

There are different types of rootkits, there are those that simply work at an application level, and those that work at kernel level. Application level rootkits are a lot easier to remove, although they inject into legit programs (or use other methods, but injecting seems to be popular now) They are easy to remove as they only modify the application (That depends on what's being modified though, but generally they are easy to remove).

 

The kernel level rootkits modify kernel of an OS, at that level it can basically do anything it pleases. The only problem is, the code needs to be 100% bug free otherwise the OS will crash. To remove kernel level rootkits you will need to boot up into another OS using a live cd or what a flash drive and do a scan from there.

 

 

 

Root kit infections can often masquerade as drivers too, but I don't think I have come across any that I have not been able to disinfect yet.

 

 

 

Thanks for the reply, just thought I would start the ball rolling :)

[JoeDaStudd]

Lot of my friends tell me that all "security programs" like Norton and Adaware don't actually do anything that you couldn't easily do yourself, and that they are basically just a scam.

 

 

 

Is this true?

 

 

 

Don't believe a word.

 

 

 

 

 

Norton is very bad though, I recommend against using it.

 

This is a misconception, with Norton 360 and later there no reason not to use it.

 

Older versions were bad, but the newer versions are much much better and far lower on system resources.

 

 

 

As for Ad-aware is a PoS imo. I was good when it was one demand, but not is not worth using.

 

 

 

As for spybot is pretty much stayed still and let MalwareBytes AntiMalware and SuperAntiSpyware become far better (both have free versions).

 

 

 

As for a question mmmm What anti junk programs would you install on a fresh from factory PC?

[mrmyk]

Locked - If people have a question, they're open to make a thread and you can post on that, instead!

 

 

 

- mrmyk