Technically Easy

Category: Security Tips

Outside of other security topics, these posts provide tips and tricks to staying safe while using various technologies.

Internet Security Options to Adopt in 2015

Today, it is hard to imagine day-to-day life without Internet and computers. More and more people are using digital storage units to keep their valuable information and also share it across online communities. The vastness of the digital world and the multitude of networks that are integral parts of the Internet make security one of the top concerns for both users and network managers.

There are endless software companies that provide sophisticated solutions for any consumer, regardless of their size or field of work. From the ordinary home user and the small business owner, to large-scale companies that need customized solutions for complex networks, the Internet security providers can please any client.

Firstly, let’s explain why a business owner, a private individual or a large company would want an Internet security software suite. While many people know and understand the threats that come with viruses, they are far from being the only harmful element that your computer or network can suffer from. There is an array of scammers, hackers, advertisers, spyware or malware that constantly look for security breaches in both home computers or complex networks. They are always on the look out for your personal information, company data or other important documents, and their only goal is to make money. A complete Internet security software pack will protect you from this plethora of harmful elements that can damage your data irreversibly.

Another excellent reason for choosing a complete security pack is the price, which is almost always far less than when you are buying the security options separately. Also, many vendors offer attractive discounts and special offers if you are buying a complete, comprehensive set of security options.

Now, let’s jump right to the facts and see which are some of the best internet security options for 2015:

1. Bitdefender Internet Security 2015

Bitdefender has once again impressed the tech world with one of the best internet security suites on the market, now available in a new bundle for 2015. The suite consistently earned top marks in all the tests and reviews from the best tech magazines and blogs. The pack includes all the goodies and features from the award-winning Bitdefender Antivirus, but has additional features that improve this already great product. New options include the Cloud antispam feature, which reduces email spam attacks, and the new parental controls that will help you control children’s safety at all times. Bitdefender’s top position in the ranks is also helped by its excellent 24/7 customer support.

2. Kaspersky Internet Security 2015

Another big name in the extremely competitive niche of Internet security, Kaspersky’s suite provides readily available global support to its customers. Known for its reliability and speed, the Kaspersky Internet Security 2015 pack will protect any security breach from potential malware entry. Effective against both spyware, hack attacks and viruses, Kaspersky has passed all the primary independent tests with flying colors, making it an excellent choice for any client. Support is offered in more than 30 languages and is available 24/7 via telephone, email or chat.

3. Norton Internet Security 2015

The Norton Internet Security 2015 pack includes every tool that you need to protect your PC, laptop, home or office networks, as well as mobile devices. Norton is efficient at detecting and blocking every known threat, and this security bundle is also a great tool for social networking, email interactions, and chatting. Independent testing has shown that Norton is one of the top performing products in its niche.

4. F-Secure Internet Security 2015

F-Secure is a trusty security partner for your home computer or business and it will provide high-performance protection from every known piee of malware or virus. Multiple independent test labs have confirmed that F-Secure acts as an outstanding protection against both known and new malware, and it has excellent repair abilities, making it a comprehensive internet security bundle.

Flaviu Mircea is a freelance writer and tech blogger who is always discovering new ways to connect with the world in a safe and timely manner. Of course, even the above security options aren’t fullproof, and so he recommends turning to other secure forms of data transmission like online faxing when sending important documentation. You can compare available online fax services online through FindAFax.com. You can learn more about Flaviu on Google+.

February 7, 2015
3M™ ePrivacy Filter Software Review

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of 3M for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

We live in a world where it seems we can be seen anywhere at anytime. We also live in a world where bigger is better, especially when it comes to computer monitors. I personally have a 24-inch computer monitor, and at times have difficulty adjusting to a smaller screen.

One of the issues with using such a large monitor is that there is no longer any privacy. Everyone behind you can easily see what you are working on, even though it may be personal. 3M has come up with an innovative piece of software that can help solve the issue of anyone that stands behind you from reading your screen.

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December 3, 2014
11 Ways To Avoid Your Email From Getting Hacked

Many business owners and webmasters do not give a lot of attention to the security of emails. It is a fact that your email accounts are vulnerable and just like your website they might get hacked. In case you are not a tech savvy person or if you have created your first ever email account, then the information mentioned in this article will be helpful for you. Email accounts are used for performing various tasks like sending emails to friends, sending important emails to your bank, sending important business information to your colleagues or boss.

Irrespective of whether you are using a private email service or a public email service, hackers have the power to break into your emails. While this might sound distressing, it is possible to take complete control of your email accounts and prevent malicious users from gaining access with the 11 ways to avoid your email from getting hacked mentioned below.

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October 27, 2014
Smartphone Security: 9 Ways to Protect You and Your Phone

Your smartphone is your lifeline for connecting to the world. It’s also a computer in your pocket, with more apps and tools than a Swiss Army knife. All that functionality creates new risks, in addition to the old risks of loss and theft. Like a computer, your phone can get hacked, fatally crash due to malware or bad apps, or track your activity and send it to third parties. Here are nine ways to protect you and your phone.

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September 24, 2014
Why Are Hackers Interested in Your Computer?

To you, a computer is something that you may use for going online, checking your e-mail, playing video games or do work. To a hacker, however, your computer is much more. A computer to a hacker is about the processing power, the applications that are installed, and, of course, the data that is stored on the hard drive. All this information combined is like gold to a hacker.

There are many ways in which hackers can use what you have stored on your computer, as well as what you have installed on your computer. Below are some of the reasons a hacker may be interested in your computer, and what you can do to help prevent hackers from gaining access to your computer.

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April 10, 2014
The 4 Most Effective Tips to Protect Your Computer from Ransomware

Ransomware – a class or malware that restricts access to a computer until a ransom is paid – has been around for many years. In fact, one of the first known ransomware – the “AIDS” trojan – was found in 1989. Unlike other malware, ransomware has been in the background, not drawing much attention. In 2013, the ransomware called CryptoLocker began making news as it infected computers, and then began encrypting personal data files. Once the files were encrypted, a ransom message was displayed informing the user to pay a specified amount of money.

Encrypting files isn’t new, of course, but now malware authors are using such encryption to extort money from unsuspecting computer users. The problem is that the encryption that is used cannot be broken by brute force methods, so either the data is lost, or the ransom needs to be paid. More and more ransomware are starting to make their rounds among computer users, and there could be much more robust, efficient ransomware, with stronger encryption, in the future.

While this may sound disturbing, there are many ways that you can protect your computer from ransomware.

1. Backup Your Files

This first method is probably the most important one – backup your files. Backing up your files is probably the best method as you can just restore your files from the backup if they do become encrypted by ransomware. Of course, you want to make sure you have a clean system to restore your files onto, or you will just re-encrypt the files.

With regards to backup, you should backup your files to “cold storage” to prevent ransomware from encrypting your backup files. Cold storage means that you can’t access your backed up files directly from your computer all the time. For example, if you backup your files to an external hard drive, only connect the hard drive when you want to backup your files, and then disconnect the hard drive from the computer. Another example of cold storage is when you backup to cloud service online.

For me, all my backed up files are stored away on cold storage. The first is an external hard drive that sits beside my computer, but is always off until I want to get access to the files or backup new files. A second backup is stored on a portable external hard drive that is connected less often – only when I have many gigabytes of data since the last backup. A third backup is stored online with Backblaze.

2. Use a Sandbox or Virtual Machine

A great solution to protecting your data from ransomware is to limit what the ransomware can get access to. Two of the best solutions to this is to browse the Web and check e-mail in either a sandbox or virtual machine.

A sandbox is the easier of the two to setup as it runs directly in the operating system of your computer. Basically a sandbox is a separate, tightly controlled area, on your computer that you can run applications in. Any application running in a sandbox has limited access to other resources on your computer – including your files. An application in a sandbox, may be able to read a file on your hard drive, but it cannot write to the file. You can also control what applications are allowed to run within the sandbox, access the Internet, and do other tasks on your computer.

There is a great Windows sandbox application called Sandboxie that has been proven to contain ransomware.

If you are technical you may want to look into setting up a virtual machine. A virtual machine is basically another computer that runs within your current computer. You main computer becomes the host to the virtual machine. Everything that happens in the virtual machine, stays within the virtual machine.

With a virtual machine, you can install a Unix-flavor operating system, such as Ubuntu, to give good security, and then access the Web and your e-mail from the virtual machine. If you do download ransomware, it may not even execute in the virtual machine as it isn’t a Windows system, and if it does execute, then the ransomware can’t see the data files on your host computer.

You can create virtual machines for free by using VirtualBox.

3. Don’t Use an Administrator Account

Windows users have always accessed their computers using an administrator account. This account has unlimited access to the computer, and up until recently was the only type of account used. Fortunately, starting with Windows Vista – although more with Windows 7 – Microsoft changed Windows to allow users to use a limited account.

If you are using Windows Vista or later, you should not be logged in with an administrator account. You should always use a limited user account. The reason is simple: any application you run will run in the same context as your user account. This means that if your account has started a ransomware application, and you are logged in with an administrator account, than the ransomware application will have unrestricted access to your computer.

While using a limited user account will not protect your data files if you accidentally ran a ransomware application, it will limit what files it affects or what restrictions it places on your computer. A limited user account can only see their own data files, and can’t change system settings, which will help limit ransomware.

To stress the point about not using an administrator account, over 90% of Microsoft-reported vulnerabilities in 2013 could have been mitigated by using a limited user account.

I have used a limited user account for 4 years with Windows 7, and haven’t had any issues with running applications. So if you are using Windows 7 or later, don’t log in with an administrator account.

4. Don’t Open Suspicious E-mails

While this tips has been mentioned for stopping malware all the time, it is still surprising that people still don’t follow it. CryptoLocker spread by an e-mail attachment, and infected hundreds of thousands of computers. That ransomware could have been stopped, or severely affected, if people just don’t open e-mail, or run attachements from unknown senders.

Many attachments in e-mails are designed to trick users into opening the attachments. Such attachments would actually have two extensions – such as .pdf.exe or .doc.exe. All the user will see many times is the first extension and an icon associated with that extension. For example, a file called example.pdf.exe file would display just example.pdf with an Adobe Reader icon. Unfortunately, the .exe extension at the end means that the file isn’t a PDF document, but an application that will run when opened.

One of the first things I do after I install Windows is to display hidden extensions of known file types, so I can exactly see all the extensions for all the files on my computer. This helps to determine if a file has a double or a single extension.

There are many ways you can protect your computer from various forms of malware. What are some of the tips that you use to protect your computer from ransomware?

February 11, 2014
Data Breaches and Cyber Attacks: Protect Your Business Network

Your business may be under attack, but you may not know until serious damage has been done. Keep yourself and your business protected with software and tools.

If you own a business, you may be vulnerable when it comes to cyber attacks. This is true whether you have five employees or well over 200. Cyber attacks do not discriminate, meaning you should be prepared to ward off potential danger before it arises. You can work on protecting your business network by downloading and using efficient antivirus software and fortifying your computers and network with the best available methods of protection.

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December 19, 2013
10 Tips to Secure Your Windows System

For many people Windows is synonymous with viruses, malware and security vulnerabilities. For many years Apple and Unix/Linux users have touted how they don’t have to worry about viruses or malware.

Windows users have, however, enjoyed the fact that their system has the most compatibility for hardware and software than any other system. This, unfortunately, has also been an issue as Windows users have always had a more open system to allow for such compatibility, which has allowed viruses and malware to propagate easily.

With the 10 tips outlines below, I will show you how you can run your system in a much more secured way, to the point where you can, hopefully, make viruses and malware threats a thing of the past. The good news is most of you probably won’t even need to spend a dime to make your system much more secure.

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November 21, 2013