A fool-proof Internet Security is always desirable, but actually speaking, it is never achievable. Howsoever smart Internet Security Tools you use, you can never be confident about the your security, because every day, newer vulnerabilities are discovered and exploits are developed.

In general, I have made it a practice to rely on one dependable Internet Security Tool for the Real Time protection, and I occasionally use some online Malware Scanners to scan my system. It is always safer to take a second opinion a dependable tool, because none of the tool is perfect, and can never be perfect. It is a constantly evolving system. Better security tools and being developed and with them malware artists are developing more lethal and smart malware.

There are many great Online File Scanners for Malware and Virus. The merits and demerits of using a Free Online Malware Scanner are…

Merits:

• Fast and Easy to use : Generally speaking, these online scanners are lean and thin, and so fast and easy.
• Always up to date: You do not have to worry about updating them regularly. They are always up-to-date with latest threat signatures and  definitions.

Demerits:

• Less Options and Features: They generally lack the options and features provided by their full licensed versions.
• No Malware Removal: Generally these scanners just provide the scanning, but do not remove the malware.

6 Great Free Online Malware and Virus Scanners

• Panda NanoScan
• McAfee FreeScan
• Symantec Security Check
• Trend Micro’s HouseCall
• ESET Online Scanner
• Kaspersky

With the ever increasing trends of online threats to your Internet Security, more and more types of malware are causing havoc to users computers.

One of the common types of threats is Drive-by-Downloads. A drive-by download is a form of exploitation where simply visiting a particular malicious website using a vulnerable system can cause a piece of malware to be downloaded and possibly even executed on that system. In other words it’s a way for a system to be compromised just by visiting a website.

Drive-by downloads are not new; they’ve been lurking around for years it seems, but they’ve become much more common and more crafty recently.

Drive-by downloading is a catch-all name for software downloaded on your computer without your knowledge or intervention. Drive-by downloading is different than phishing, which misleads users by using authentic-appearing sites that deceive users into entering sensitive information, and different than pop-ups, which fool users into agreeing to download software. Drive-by downloads sneak onto computers without the user’s knowledge or permission.

Some of the most common drive-by download carriers are songs from free music share sites, free screensavers, etc. Many of these install spyware that monitors your surfing habits, and then displays pop-ups that match your habits.

How to avoid Drive-by-Downloads

Use a fully updated Browser: It is a pity that despite the increase in threats to Internet Security, people do not pay adequate attention to their browsers and do not care to an updated browser. I am pained to note that as many as 12% people who visit this blog are still using Internet Explorer 6, which has long been phased out by Microsoft. And out of the people who use the latest versions, I do not know how many of them care to update their browsers to the latest patches and security features.

Use Common Sense: Don’t seek or browse disreputable Internet sites or sites that rely heavily on pop-up ads for revenue. Common sites that fall into this category include free file sharing, bootleg game, bootleg video, and porn sites. If whatever a site is offering seems too good to be true, then it probably is

Turn ON Your Phishing Filters: Make sure to turn on your phishing filter, as shown above. Doing so might help you to spot misbehaving Internet sites.

Block Pop-Ups: Ensure it.

Manage Your Add-ons: There are two types of add-ons that should raise a red flag: those that you don’t recognize and those that are not verified. Unrecognized add-ons that are verified by your browser are fine, but those that are not verified should be investigated or disabled from within the browser add-on manager.

Taking a few small precautions will help a great deal in fortifying your Internet Security.

Review your Internet Security

United States Computer Emergency Research team, US-CERT, has issued a warning about a serious vulnerability of all the popular Browsers like IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari etc. They have warned about an an attack that inserts itself in the middle of a user’s interaction with a Web page through clicking buttons. As soon as a person clicks on a link on a web page, his browser can perform any arbitrary function, including redirecting the browser to a third-party site, and a totally unwanted function may get performed.

This is called ClickJacking

According to one of the reports, Clickjacking gives an attacker the ability to trick a user into clicking on something only barely or momentarily noticeable. Therefore, if a user clicks on a web page, they may actually be clicking on content from another page. A separate report indicates that this flaw affects most web browsers and that no fix is available, but that disabling browser scripting and plug-ins may help mitigate some of the risks.

And the worst part is that not only the malicious web pages, any legit site like Newsweek, Digg or BBC may carry this to you. The exact magnitude of risks is yet to come out, but is clear that present browsers are incapable of avoiding it.

In such a situation you can only hope to not come across it, while browsing.

So, right now, there are four options for you.

1. Stop Browsing the Internet, I know you can’t do it.
2. Suspend your browsing and wait till these browsers get updated, this is also difficult.
3. Start using Firefox, and install NoScript firefox plugin., You may not like it either, because this will make many of the sites you visit to appear as broken.
4. Pray, that you do not fall victim to the attack.

I think the only option is the last one.

Internet Security concerns are growing day by day.

Each passing day gives birth to new Internet security threats, newer malware, viruses, spyware, trojans, rootkits and what not; and with them we come across various Internet Security Tools. Some of them require to shell out money, but there are some security tools, which provide you Internet Security on-the-fly.

One such tool is WOT.

WOT is the acronym  for Web of Trust. WOT is actually a Firefox add-on, and so is available absolutely FREE. Once you download and install, it starts giving you information about a website’s trustworthiness, before you open the site.

It protects you from

• Spyware, adware and viruses
• Browser exploits
• Unreliable online shops
• Phishing, spam and other Internet scams
• Annoying or malicious spam

WOT reputation ratings have four components:

• Trustworthiness
• Vendor reliability
• Privacy
• Child safety

WOT lets you customize your level of protection to make your browsing experience safe and enjoyable. To protect your family, you can even set WOT to block inappropriate content for children. Ratings are shown on Google, Yahoo!, Gmail, Wikipedia, digg and other sites

This security tool operates in two ways.

First is through Search Engines. When you enter a search query in Google, it puts a colored circle in front of search results. The color of the circle tells you about the trustworthiness of the site. If you hover your mouse over the circle, you get more information about the site. See the screenshot below.

Second is through the Firefox Location bar. Once you install WOT in Firefox, you get a button, which changes color as per the trustworthiness of the site. If you click on the button, you get more information about the site. See the screenshot below.

There are lots of settings available for this Internet Security Tool, which you can tweak to let this tools operate as per your requirements.

I find it attractive in comparison to lots of best spyware removal tools.

Download WOT (Mozilla Firefox Site)

Online Malware Detection – What it is ?

Internet is spreading fast. And with this, the online threats to your privacy and security are increasing day-by-day. Hundreds and thousands of innocent users are made victims by these spyware and malware programs every day. There is a continuous race between malware developers and security experts and vendors to stay ahead. HiJackThis, is a tool in the hands of a user, to detect malware and remove it from their system.

But Beware. HijackThis is not a tool, which is easy to use. Its use requires you to be able to fully understand and interpret its results and logs. Thankfully, there are lots of forums and platforms, where you can post the log files of HiJackThis, and the volunteers may help you after going through your logs.

HijackThis, sometimes abbreviated HJT, is a freeware spyware-removal tool for Microsoft Windows originally created by Merijn Bellekom, and later sold to Trend Micro. The program is notable for taking a heuristic approach to detecting malware – rather than relying on a database of known spyware, it quickly scans a user’s computer, creates a list of differences from a known spyware-free environment and allows the user to decide what from the list needs to be removed. HijackThis is used primarily for diagnosis of spyware, as blind use of its removal facilities can cause significant software damage to a computer.

Use HijackThis can generate a plain text logfile detailing all entries it finds, and most entries can be removed or disabled by HijackThis. Inexperienced users are often advised to exercise caution, or to seek help when using the latter option[1], as HijackThis does not discriminate between legitimate and unwanted items, with the exception of a small whitelist of legitimate entries — thus allowing a user to unintentionally prevent important programs from running, which may cause their system or its peripherals to stop working. HijackThis will, however, attempt to create backups of the files and registry entries it removes, which can be used to restore the system in the event of a mistake.

Visit HiJackThis Download

Accidental file deletion.

This happens with everybody, with you, with me, with that computer geek, or this average Joe.

You delete a file, thinking that it is just cluttering your hard dick, only to find later after a week, that it contained the all important information, you require today. BANG.

There may be other ways also to lost your files and documents. A hard disk corruption, a rogue virus or worm or even a well thought out partitioning or formatting a disk drive. You always think about that lost file.

But there are programs and software available, which can perform data recovery of that old file. There are many of those, and it will be difficult for you to choose the best one among them. Among them, there is at least one software, which delivers exactly what it promises.

Welcome to Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software.

This is a magical piece of file recovery software from renowned Steller Information Systems, which is a complete data recovery solution that helps you to search, locate and recover your lost, missing, inaccessible or deleted data. It is powered by ‘Raw File Recovery’ feature that recognizes & recovers more than 300 file types including documents, spreadsheets, web content & images.

The key features include…

• Advance Search: Helps recover selected files and folders
• RAW File Recovery: Recover more than 300 file types in case of severe file system corruption
• Enhanced Photo Recovery: Recover RAW camera format files.
• Compressed FS Recovery: Recover data from compressed NTFS file system
• Create Image of the Media: Recover files from storage media having lot of bad sectors
• File Preview: View the file contents and get an overview about the recovery results.
• Improved User Interface : It makes data recovery easier without requiring any technical knowledge. The interface includes options such as Find File, File Mask and File Filter to help you search, view or recover any specific file type.
• Multiple Recovery Options: Recover large volume of data as compressed file or to a FTP server.
• Live Update: Receive latest product enhancements and keep your application updated
• Save Scan: So that you are able to resumes recovery at a later stage

Yet another feature is that it is a flexible tool. If you want to recover a file type, which is not included in the standard list, you can add that to it using a wizard. It is meant for the Windows platform and works on all versions including Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista in all of the file systems like FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system.

You can download a demo version from their site, but the full version with the standard features will cost you $99 USD.

But this will an investment worth making, if you store sensitive data on your computer.

This review was done on request, but not on paid basis. We agreed to review the product on Internet Security Blog, because of the merits of the product. If you also want to showcase your product on Webtools & Tips, feel free to contact us.

This is part of a series of everyday Tips for your Internet Security.

Microsoft Outlook and many other web-based email programs have a Preview Pane feature, which shows you the contents of an email just by clicking (selecting) an email. This offers a lot of convenience as you can quickly browse through the contents of the mail before actually opening it.

But it offers a big security risk too.

Seeing the preview is as good as opening the email. Many of today’s email viruses will run as soon as the email is opened without you double-clicking on an attachment or anything. It’s kind of like opening an envelope from your  mailbox only to find that there is some mysterious white powder in it. Once it has been opened, the damage is done.

So why to Risk your Internet Security. It is too precious to jeopardize just to for the sake of saving a few seconds.

How to Turn OFF Preview Pane

• If you are using Outlook go to View menu > Current View > Click Customize Current View.
• Click on Other Settings
• In the AutoPreview group, click No AutoPreview.
• In the Preview Pane group, uncheck Show Preview Pane.
• Click OK.
• If you are using any other Email Client or a web-based email service, then look for the options in your Email Settings.

We encourage you to go through all the Tips on Internet Security. Some of these tips are quite common, but often ignored by most computer users.