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Your PC Might Be Infected - Advices
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By Hamid Reza Soroush Zand
[Hits: 14066]
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The world of online privacy and threats has changed direction.In the past all that caused worries and concerns in online cyberworld came from viruses created by some causing formatting yourhard drive or hanging of your computer but this has changeddramatically.
Now you are confronted with threats of tiny files and codescalled spyware and malware and ad ware that are very small insize but with crushing effects such as learning about youridentity, stealing your credit card numbers, residing in yoursystems for long times and others things.
Have you ever thought how those sending you spam emails havelearned about your email address? If you know some signs ofinfection you will be able to find a remedy for your systembefore it's too late.
Examples: You are using dial up internet connection and you arenot online, and suddenly the connection box appears andautomatically without your command goes online. This behaviormight has been caused by a spyware on your system that haslogged your keystrokes and has made a file and now wants tocommunicate with the creator or the source infecting you.
I already suppose you all have firewalls installed specially theworld famous zone alarm. Now another example, if you are onlineand are not downloading anything nor are you browsing any sitesbut you can see the traffic sings on your zone alarm icon on thetaskbar, this means a program or software on your PC isdownloading or uploading something, so check your programssection of the firewall to see what program is doing so, ofcourse not all programs communicating online are to causeworries, for example windows system from time to time contactsMicrosoft website to learn if there is a new update but it'srecommended that you check to see if only trustworthy programsare allowd to be online.
Another case we can mention is when your windows automaticallywants to restart or log off, especially if you have not recentlyinstalled a new software on your computer.
Always keep your firewall and windows system and your internetexplorer or your other browsers up to date.
Please don't visit fishy websites such as hackers websites andforums as much as you can. Also take care about what you aredownloading from unknown sources such as p2p softwares. Don'tforget to have your firewall running while downloading filesfrom such sources.
Try using as many anti spyware and virus programs as you can,and check for the latest security softwares at www.download.com
Never leave your computer online if you are active in any chatrooms, some might learn about your position and IP and later onwill attack your computer through some methods that you wouldhave never thought.
Online shopping is now an indispensable part of our lives andyou enter your credit card numbers on various sites everyday,exercise this practice of scanning your whole system before andafter each online transaction to minimize the risk of infectionand revealing your financial secrets to strangers.
Always check the URL the site you want to enter your personalinfo on to be the real one you indented to use, pay attention tothe letters of the domain name and the URL be he real one.
Check your favorites list everyday, if you see some websitesthat are listed but sound unfamiliar to you, delete them andscan your computer.
Try not using your web based email addresses for criticalcorrespondences, instead use a safer email address from acompany that you can use with your mail client like outlook, thereason is when you lose your web based email address due to yourpassword getting stolen by someone, from that moment onward thatemail address is his and you cannot take it back, but even ifyou lose your password of client based email address, you caneasily contact the email provider and change your password.
If you visit a website and during your visiting a blank pop upwindow appears with nothing on it, it strongly is a malwareloaded onto your computer, so in such case, immediatelydisconnect from the internet and make a full system scan.
And never ever write your passwords or financial information ina text file on your computer, for these reasons, use the goodold pen and paper.
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