Protect your computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ellen
  • Start date Start date
E

Ellen

My friend got one of the many SPAM messages talking about how to protect
your PC and buy that firms software (of course).

I have told her:
So called spyware is downloaded to your machine, when you access certain
sites. I have a program for you which I will install (ad_aware) and it is
freeware and
advices by most people. It will detect the spyware and you can delete it
from your computer.

I also will install for your the latest version of IE so you more easily can
delete cookies and temporary internet files, on a daily/regular basis.
In this way you keep your machine more cleaner and more "protected".


I was just wondering if there is more we can do... to keep a cleaner
computer and be "protected".

Thanks in advance,
Ellen
 
If they say messenger service in the title bar, these have nothing to do
with MSN messenger or Windows messenger. What this is a new way for spammers
to attack your computer and send you pop-up ads. If you receive these ads it
means that your computers netbios ports are wide open to the internet and
this could be a real security problem. What you should do is install a good
firewall that will block the ports the spammers use and stop the ads. A good
place to start is Zone Alarm ( www.zonelabs.com ) for an inbound/outbound
blocking firewall or use the inbound blocking only firewall built in to XP.
If needed configure the XP firewall to block ports 135, 137-139 and 445.
Zone Alarm will block these ports by default.

Use this site to test some of your ports security:
https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

You can disable the messenger service, which is the service the spammers
exploit, but it isn't needed to stop the ads and disabling the service will
not secure your computer from outside attacks or block the open netbios
ports.

Note: If the Messenger service is stopped, messages from the Alerter
service (notifications from your antivirus software, for example) are
not transmitted. If the Messenger service is turned off, any services
that explicitly depend on the Messenger service do not start, and an
error message is logged in the System event log. For this reason,
Microsoft recommends that you install a firewall and configure it to
block NetBIOS and RPC traffic instead of turning off the Messenger
service.

If the pop-ups appear while surfing web pages then download and install one
of the many pop-up blocker programs. Search www.download.com for popup
blocker, you'll find many free ones.

Also get a good spyware cleaner -- http://security.kolla.de/
 
Thanks Purple,

not the title bar said: "You are not protected" and the so called sender
was: " Security Notice".

Okay, I know Zone Alarm... Used to have it myself before we got an router
which has a firewall included. Thanks for the tip/reminder!

For pop-ups I use myself NoAds and I am very satisfied with the results of
this utilities. I tried other freeware, but so far this is the one for me
(http://www.southbaypc.com/free_utilities.asp).

I will check out the site you gave me for Spyware, although I am using
myself Ad_aware 6.0 (http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/) and I was
planning to install that on my friends PC.

Best regards,
Ellen
 
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