On Computer Security and Account Hacks

[Qabian]

Friend of mine did this up for his guild (hisssss), and offered that it might be informative to repost.  Figured what the hey, can't hurt, might help.

Take from it what you will!

No, I didn't write it.

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First things first - if you find this post tl;dr and don't want to take the time to read it, or don't want to take some time and consider how to use this advice, consider how much time you'll lose if your WoW account is hacked. Or your bank account. Consider how much time you'll lose if a piece of malware trashes your HD completely. If your computer is important to you (and we know it is), then read this.

First and most important: If you're running Windows, make sure that you've got all of the latest updates and security patches for your OS. The days of Microsoft destroying half the PCs in corporate America with a security patch are long gone, and the (much reduced) risk of a patch causing a problem is nothing beside the (very real) risk that that security hole is being exploited RIGHT NOW.

The free version of ZoneAlarm can be found here: http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us ... rewall.htm - using the internet without using a firewall is like having sex without a condom when you KNOW the other person has a disease. I like ZoneAlarm Free. It blocks EVERYTHING by default on installation, so you'll have to spend a little time teaching it what things are allowed to get out to the internet, but once you have it runs very smoothly and will help prevent (for instance) keyloggers from 'phoning home'.

Avast! Antivirus Home Edition is free and can be found here: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html - It's low-impact as far as PC resources go, easy to set up, and I've used their business suite in office environments happily. I recommend them highly.

Spybot S&D is here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html - one of two good, free anti-spyware programs I recommend.

Ad-Aware Free Edition can be downloaded here: http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php - the second of two good, free anti-spyware programs.

If you're still browsing with Internet Explorer, STOP. I'm not going to call IE the devil, and I'm not going to claim that alternative browsers don't have exploits - but the fact is, the spyware and malware community spends more time looking for exploits in Internet Explorer, and they are there to be found. It is not a safe web browser.

If your alternative browser of choice is Firefox, you have a few options for even better security:

Adblock Plus is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865 - in addition to saving you a bunch of annoying ads, it helps prevent unwanted content running on your computer.

NoScript is here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722 - it advertises itself as 'the best security you can get for a web browser', and while that's not quite true, it's still damned good. It's annoying in the early stages, because it defaults to blocking EVERYTHING that tries to run scripts through your browser, but it will remember which sites you trust, so after a week or so it'll be fine.

Finally, if your WoW addon manager of choice is set to auto-update, tell it not to do so anymore. Having it automatically CHECK for updates is fine, but even the more reputable add-on sites have been burned by people uploading keyloggers in place of addons. When the manager tells you there are updates, it's worth your while to go check the site and ensure that the update seems legit.

[Sammuel]

don't forget Malwarebytes: http://www.malwarebytes.org/index.php

it's free and completely awesome for cleaning your system of malware.

[Malkaris]

Malwarebytes has saved my neck a few times... stupid Vundo virus didn't want to go away ><

[Amaurn]

Surprised you haven't mentioned AVG. I've found it extremely reliable. I've even seen it crush the viruses in massively infected PC of a friend before.