Stop spam to save the planet.

Like you, I too stopped to read the headline again.
"Stop spam to save the planet. "

Spam emails endangering the ecology of the earth? What is this? How a non-physical thing can do such harm?

But a recent study has revealed that spam is the main cause that harms the planet earth as it produces greenhouse gases.

The true findings:
"According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, the research shows all those unsolicited messages, 62 trillion of them last year, generate greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a car around the planet 1.6 million times.-Times of India

Like many Indians, I too never took the spam emails that I receive (who doesn't?) daily. I just delete the emails as innocuous.

But here is the interesting fact:
There is lot of energy in sending, storing and sorting the unsolicited email messages. Do you know that 33 billion kilowatt-hours of power is wasted in this process?

The added statistics is, more than 80% of the emails that are sent daily is Spam.

Here is a shocking truth:

When McColo, the noted spammer cum web hosting service provider was closed by its Internet service provider last November, worldwide spam fell by 70% overnight.

I burrowed deep into the news report and was literally sat upright when I came to know that
most of the spam is generated from botnets and that makes it very hard to identify where it’s coming from.

Please visit the link above to learn more about Spam and ecology.

Who should you call for PC repair?

Anyone can buy a top notch computer with all the latest frills such as cordless mouse and key board, bluetooth headset and so on. But when we encounter a problem in the midst of an important work, we first lose our patience.

Then, we try to figure out what can be wrong and invariably, we mess up and cause further damage to our system. We could have avoided this had we called for professional support for pc repair. But unfortunately, we do this as a last resort.

When we buy paying a big price for our computer, we should not hesitate to call for professional help when something goes wrong.

I would like to introduce to you one such expert at solving any IT problems. BT group is a leader in providing IT based services and communications solutions. They offer to attend to your computer problems at your doorstep.

You can call them to your home for:

*Installing a new computer

*Solving a virus attack

*Providing a wireless internet connection

To avail a big £30 off on all computer repair services, you can call them up at 0800 500 295.

Warning.Don't download.

This short blog is intended to help you with some useful tips and hints about the safety of your PC.

At times, we are browsing aimlessly without intending to visit any pre-destined websites, we may see a pop-up message from nowhere and in it we read that our PC has adult sites tracking and we are to download file that will remove those tracks.

The action that is required from us is no action. Just ignore the warning and continue browsing. But, we can contact that particular website from where the pop-up surfaced and inform of their malicious activities. Please note that they may advertising through such pop-ups for money.

Invariably, new comers to internet will be vulnerable to such phishing. Public internet centers should warn the users of such activities.

Inspired by Leo.

Using instant messenger? Read this then.

Thank God, I don't use instant messengers. At the start of my internet career, I used Yahoo IM extensively. Then, as and when I started getting busy, those friends became an annoyance.

The reason for my gratitude towards God is the news I am hearing about several attacks on IMs.

Chat networks are the hot new venue for virus and malware authors. A new study says that malicious attacks over IM networks are up almost 80 percent compared to last year.

Akonix, which just released the statistics over the weekend, is in the business of developing IM “cleaning” services so you might want to take the numbers with a grain of salt, but still, according to Akonix’s survey there have been 226 exploits for IM networks this year, which is just over one a day.

So, what is the moral behind this story?

“As with everything else in the online world, make sure you trust your IM contacts before clicking a link or downloading any files sent over IM”.

Beware of rootkits.

I think Rootkit will affect mostly Linux based system.
A rootkit is a set of software tools intended to conceal running processes, files or system data from the operating system.

Rootkits have their origin in benign applications, but in recent years have been used increasingly by malware to help intruders maintain access to systems while avoiding detection. Rootkits exist for a variety of operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Linux and Solaris. Rootkits often modify parts of the operating system or install themselves as drivers or kernel modules.

When I detected some problem with my PC, I called my system engineer. He ran scan but could find anything. So, together we searched for some indication to identify the cause and learnt about rootkits. A rootkit is often used to hide utilities.

How to minimise internal risks?

Before starting to blame external threats for breach of security, business houses and major hosts are asked to plug the leak that is most certainly would happen due to inside jobs.

Thouigh I would not foresee this hacking in India, western countries repeatedly report such crimes.

So what are you doing to prevent an inside job?

According to a March 2006 Enterprise Strategy Group survey of 227 IT professionals, “employees and on-site contractors were cited as the most likely threat to confidential data security.”

The first step is to create a company-wide policy. Ideally, this policy should include “physical, technical, and human factor elements,” says Mitnick. For example, terminated employees should immediately lose access to not only the physical office, but to the computer network as well.

Keep your OS up to date
New password policies
Monitor employee computer use

If your business, or simply your IT department, is too small to handle this type of project, consider hiring a consultant or VAR to help put a system in place, says Mitnick. With luck, taking these steps will help you to protect your computer networks inside and out.

Thank you technology.inc.com

My password strategy.

Forget about blog posts and articles on how to create your crack proof passwords. No need to install any password remembering software even.

Here is my method:
I think my password in my local language only.
My base words will be the eatables that are exclusive to my home.
Such words cannot be found in any dictionary.
Wikipedia won't help you.
I will not use any other special characters in my password.
No numbers too.
Offline storing only.
Sometimes I name the password after the day of the week but with certain numbers.
Finally, I will not bother to remember it.

Simple but safe-right?

Spy sweeper for your PC.

Don't be surprised to find an url that doesn't have spysweeper in it when you search for spy sweeper. The url for spy sweeper will be http://www.webroot.com/

My friend who is a bank manager sought my advise about the best spyware software that I have used so far. It is very wise of him to ask such a question instead of asking the best spyware that I know.

I recommended the free version of Spy Sweeper and test it for a month. If he is satisfied, then he go in for a paid version.

I helped him download it and did a full scan. His PC was infected for sure but we were surprised to find about 1200 infections that were to be removed.

My friend decided on the spot to pay for it.

Is your virus scanner working?

Anti Virus software checks our PC for malicious viruses, spyware and adware. After scanning, it eliminates them with your permission.

But how do we check whether our anti virus software is really working?
Timothy solves (y)our query in his blog Life Hacker.

"The EICAR virus test is a harmless text file that is detected as a virus by most AV vendors. You can use it to verify that your local virus scanner is working. Just copy the string into a plain text file), check to see if your email server scans for viruses (email yourself a copy), and test if scanners detect viruses inside archives (put it inside a zip file)."

Recently, I used Google Updater and downloaded free version of Spyware Doctor and it seems to be working well within its capability. I will check if it reports EICAR.

Thank you Timothy.