Computer Protection

Hey guys, so let's get to the point, I would really like some help on how to protect my computer from Malware, Spyware, RATS, Trojans, etc. this would be very nice as in I find this quite important in daily computing nowadays.

Sincerely- Jacob.

PS. I believe I've never encountered a point where I went against Logan's logic/morals, just shows how similar we are. ;) 

Common sense is usually the best defense.

Don't download stuff from shady sites unless you are absolutely sure you know what it is. Look at file extensions. If you thought you were downloading a video but the file says .exe don't click it. 

Windows built in stuff is usually enough protection these days. Malware Bytes is pretty great too. Avast isn't bad either. 

Antivirus is irrelevant mostly. Microsoft Security Essentials will do, and it won't bog down your machine much.

What you really want to do is minimize the surface area for attacks. It's actually pretty simple to do this. This list is ordered from an effectiveness and convenience basis. The top are the most effective and convenient, the bottom are just as effective but may be less convenient.:

  1. First off, Install Adblock. It's the sad truth, especially if you like supporting ad-based sites, but nearly every virus infection is through an infected ad server. Installing Adblock closes off a huge infection vector. Make up the lost revenue by donating a dollar a year to your favourite twelve sites.
  2. Secondly, Install HTTPS everywhere. This will increase your privacy as well as give you a big o'l error any time that there might be some vulnerable content served up. Mixed mode websites aren't necessarily bad, but they are the ones you'll need to be more careful about. Check the URL to anything you click on when you get the mixed mode warnings.
  3. Turn on click to load on all plugins. Get rid of non-essential plugins. Plugins are the devil, if you can live without them you just improved your security a thousand fold.
  4. Install NoScript and configure it as you go. This will break a lot of sites until you go in and add exceptions, but It's going to close off just about every exploitable hole in your web browser.

From there, you just need to educate yourself on safe practices. Don't open random attachments. Don't stick in unknown USB devices. Run a virus scan on weekly basis. Back up frequently to both off site and on site storage. Redundancy is great in this, if you ever have to recover from a distasterious event you will thank yourself. Personally I make sure that my documents folder is backed up to a thumb drive, my general file system snapshots and offsite backups, multiple. Copy, Dropbox, CrashPlan.

If you follow those steps, you'll have mostly nothing to fear from infection or any sort of desasterious event.

I agree with DerKrieger, just don't go on shady sites and you will be fine. Also make sure you backup your data often. 

The most important thing is keeping your operating system and all software constantly updated, and not doing stupid things like clicking random links or torrenting games and software and shit.

 

Request Policy and Ghostery are two other excellent firefox add ons, in addition to NoScript, HTTPS Everywhere, and adblockplus. You also should use something like click & clean to remove all cookies and LFOs and clear your cache and browsing history and all that when you close your browser.

 

 

Trusted websites can become compromised, so even on trusted sites, minimal scripting should be allowed. Cross site scripting is one of the top attack vectors there are, and if a trusted site contains malicious javascript and you visit it, you're probably owned.

if you would like to go extreme, you could use a bsd/linux hypervisor that runs your windows machine virtualized, because
1) backups are really easy with snapshots if you get infected, you are up and running again in 5 minutes
2) some worms/viruses deactivate themselves when run on a VM, and can't do nasty things to your bios etc...
3) you can easily "unplug" the network  when you don't need it
if you don't want to do this, the 3) is still a good practice, unplug your dsl/fiber access point when not needed (like, use a timer to shut it down at 1 am (in case you stay late) and  launch it at 8 am (sooner or later, depending on when you wake up, and if you go to work, you can also unplug it)
this does the following : 
1) it refreshes your IP
2) if someone is trying to hack into your wifi, he is stopped at each shutdown
also, turn off your wifi if you don't need it.
 
if you feel you can do it, get a raspberry pi and install a proxy on it (like pfsense), or if you use a virtualized system, you can put a vm with a proxy in it, so that your windows vm connects through the proxy to the internet.

having a strategy for /root/user/userology is probably a good starting point.
The "out-of-the-box" scheme, as woven into the consumer Rx by the "they", profits on your leap of faith. Simply obstructing this important ingredient is a recommended first step. Everything needs to be configured. Your system should never engage any process you have not given it specific instructions and/or permission to execute. Your browser should be configured to not allow potentially harmful data to harm you regardless of any site you navigate to. (you can install all of the jenky add-ons you want but until you create rules and assign permissions in the config.js - all youre doing is applying duct tape on concerns that require sheet metal and some welding) "on your feet - or on your knees" - you can allow the current climate of fear to guide you toward every place to hide from would-be potentially harmful individuals and their anticts - or you could stand, defend the wall, and travel as you please. It really comes down to choices. Your ability to evaluate your own discipline should anchor said choices.  Choices: /a/"I am genuinely concerned about my security and am willing to take the steps to learn how to improve my own discipline; and through further evalution and education decide what are the correct measures to take to harden /sysconfig." - or - /b/"can someone give me an out-of-the-box solution to counter the threats i hear about from other people. I have a busy schedule and not a lot of time to invest in learning the back-end of neither the problem nor the solution." If you are category /a/: mount-up and lets get started. /b/ google it - im sure some genius has constructed a way to sell you the security you think you need. 

Rather simple, you don't need any kind of Anti-Virus or FireWall.

For the general, who don't want to go through all plugins to check if they contain some kind of a virus.

Don't be an idiot, it is that simple. Don't download things from untrusted websites, stay of random websites, dont click adds.

Update your computer whenever it is ready.

1.Install gentoo.

2.????

3..PROFIT

Hey mate!,I'm gonna gonna go through some tips to make sure your computer stays secure!

1. Download the extenction called "Ad-blocker plus". You could mainly just google it and it should. be the first link. Well why should you even get ad-blocker? First of it blocks all the ads on a web page. And you should never trust ads on any website since they can contain malicious files like a bitcoin miner witch makes these companies rich, and destroys your computer. Well ads can contain other sorts of viruses as well.

2. Download "Avast Antivirus" it is a antivirus trusted by many people. It is probably the largest antivirus out there! And the best part is that they have a free version of it witch is amazing! You cans find avast at https://www.avast.com. 

3. So the third step is to download malwarebytes witch is a software that remove malware from your computer! So if you now accidentally got a malware from an ad or just  downloaded it Malwarebytes will most likely get rid of it. 

4. Get zemana anti logger witch will protect you from all of these stupid keyloggers. So basically what zemana antilogger does I that it scrambles the keys you hit to something random. Lie, if I would type "hello" zemana anti logger would for an example make it look like this "nfun347£&" 

5. All of these tips are great but remember that you can never be completely secure. To be honest if you feel like you have got a virus restore your PC and get everything that I mentioned in this message for more security, and restore your PC to factory setting very often, hanks! 

PS: be careful when you restore your PC so you don't do anything wrong!

I used to windows security essential with zone alarm free firewall. That was more than enough. Never had a single virus. Now I'm using Kaspersky internet security. Didn't really test it that much.

man, back in the day you could download trainers, and warez and never fear any kinda a malware now it's the main vector of them.

ripper and warez crews use to pride themselves on their releases, but i guess anyone can commandeer those for their own nefarious purposes.

Always download software from their page. 

About torrenting games, software etc... I never got a virus from those. These days i only get some malware (because my brother-in-law wants to cheat games and installs all kinds of trainers and software).

And i highly recommend Opera as a browser. That browser is immune to malware (you will still get it but won't affect the browser like IE,firefox and chrome, specially chrome, mainly because they wont bother to make it work in opera)