How to protect my computer?
How to protect my computer?
Serious question for you all you computer whizzes on the forum...
Can you please advise me, in simple plain English (non-technical), what I should use to protect my new laptop from viruses, malware, spyware, etc..? Free software, paid software, whatever's best.
Just purchased a new laptop and last thing I want is someone hacking into it or whatever it's called. I'm hopeless when it comes to technology!
Thanks in advance
Can you please advise me, in simple plain English (non-technical), what I should use to protect my new laptop from viruses, malware, spyware, etc..? Free software, paid software, whatever's best.
Just purchased a new laptop and last thing I want is someone hacking into it or whatever it's called. I'm hopeless when it comes to technology!
Thanks in advance
I'm not a negative person, I encourage people all the time...it's usually to f**k off! But, whatever.
1. Don't open files or click on any link via email. Phishing is the biggest way to lose your shit.
2. Buy a Mac
3. Ask Alexandra.
2. Buy a Mac
3. Ask Alexandra.
pew, pew, pew, pew!
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- Bark plop plop bark woof woof
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What do you use the computer for and how paranoid do you want to be? It's always hard to respond to these sorts of questions without a pre-defined threat model, which on the other hand is hard for regular people to come up with (and I'm not asking you to, just give me a hunch). Catch 22.PSD_Kiwi wrote:Can you please advise me, in simple plain English (non-technical), what I should use to protect my new laptop from viruses, malware, spyware, etc..? Free software, paid software, whatever's best.
Are you seeking military grade protection including protection against people with physical access or normal person level protection?
Yes, it's the same. Basically it applies to any form of Internet access. For example malware served via online ads, malvertising, sometimes infect computers even via the most legit of legit sites, but it's often quickly discovered and blocked, except when it's not.violet wrote:What about clicking on links on facebook.. same as in an email?
Even the most popular software has flaws. Only 2 months ago Microsoft patched a vulnerability in Skype allowing people to execute code remotely via copy paste in a chat...
Bless
- violet
- Suspicious Little Mad Woman
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Wow just from copy paste in a chat. Mazeballs.
My mind is blown when I think of what our future will be like. Some of us aren't young enough to stick around for the juicy bits.....or are they? Who knows what is round the corner.
I have had a hard time lately...under the weather, extreme lack of sleep....I am firing on half of eight cylinders.... but I get a surge of energy when I think about what is coming. Love it with a passion and wish I had the mind of Elon Musk
My mind is blown when I think of what our future will be like. Some of us aren't young enough to stick around for the juicy bits.....or are they? Who knows what is round the corner.
I have had a hard time lately...under the weather, extreme lack of sleep....I am firing on half of eight cylinders.... but I get a surge of energy when I think about what is coming. Love it with a passion and wish I had the mind of Elon Musk
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
- Plutarch
- Lucky Lucan
- K440 Knight Captain
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I use the free version of Panda at home, and some licensed version of Sophos at work. They don't always stop adware or malware which I've had a pain in the ass with recently so I was using a Hitman Pro trial today, it found a lot of crap but not the one annoying ad redirect that I want to get rid of.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
The free version of Malwarebytes is pretty good. If you find an infected file you can upload it to Virustotal for a detection comparison between different vendors.Lucky Lucan wrote:I use the free version of Panda at home, and some licensed version of Sophos at work. They don't always stop adware or malware which I've had a pain in the ass with recently so I was using a Hitman Pro trial today, it found a lot of crap but not the one annoying ad redirect that I want to get rid of.
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- bipolar bear
- I have some social problems
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Alexandra wrote: What do you use the computer for and how paranoid do you want to be?
For my part, I want to be very paranoid. Unfortunately for me, I've always been a bit "Fuck you" when it comes to authorities and Governments. I've always been anti-authoritarian, especially when it is stabbingly obvious so-called authorities which should be working for the benefit of people - which all should be or they shouldn't be an authority - are actually working for the benefit of themselves and vested interests.
I'm a "normal" user who is becoming increasingly disconcerted about the laws already enacted and others that may be coming that do and will erode my freedom and impinge on my privacy.Alexandra wrote: Are you seeking military grade protection including protection against people with physical access or normal person level protection?
Bless
Western governments seem to believe they have the right to know everything about what I do on the internet and the oft cited justification is, "If you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to hide and therefore nothing to worry about."
You could take that one step further and legislate for mandatory CCTV cameras in peoples houses, cos, y'know, they only need to worry if they are doing bad shit in their homes.
Anyway, don't want to derail this thread, as I'm pretty sure PSD_Kiwi didn't necessarily have this level of paranoia and hard protection in mind, but if you feel inclined to answer here or in another thread I'd be most interested. If you can also point me to sources and resources that would be great.
- bipolar bear
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I do use free Malwarebytes and Superantispyware. Virustotal I'd not heard of, so thanks for that. AV I use is the Avast free and use the Windows built in Firewall along with usually passing my traffic along a paid for VPN, PIA.Alexandra wrote:The free version of Malwarebytes is pretty good. If you find an infected file you can upload it to Virustotal for a detection comparison between different vendors.Lucky Lucan wrote:I use the free version of Panda at home, and some licensed version of Sophos at work. They don't always stop adware or malware which I've had a pain in the ass with recently so I was using a Hitman Pro trial today, it found a lot of crap but not the one annoying ad redirect that I want to get rid of.
Bless
As others have said, it depends exactly what level of security you want.
100% don't connect to the Internet - but not very useful.
If you want anything like decent security then don't use a Microsoft or Apple Operating system, full stop.
Yes, if you do use either there are a host of add on helps, but, surely, that is crazy, to use a system that needs add ons to secure.
Use a Linux Distribution...
Which one?? Your choice, There is a host depending on the equipment & level of security you want..
Here is a good place to start to look..
http://distrowatch.com/
100% don't connect to the Internet - but not very useful.
If you want anything like decent security then don't use a Microsoft or Apple Operating system, full stop.
Yes, if you do use either there are a host of add on helps, but, surely, that is crazy, to use a system that needs add ons to secure.
Use a Linux Distribution...
Which one?? Your choice, There is a host depending on the equipment & level of security you want..
Here is a good place to start to look..
http://distrowatch.com/
- Replace BIOS with something like coreboot or librebootbipolar bear wrote:if you feel inclined to answer here or in another thread I'd be most interested. If you can also point me to sources and resources that would be great.
- Use full disk encryption, be vary of low resolution cameras.
- Super glue your RAM.
- Be vary of Evil Maid attacks. Defeat them with TPM in combination with your bootloader placed on an SD-card that you carry on your person at all times. Boot from SD card with hardware switch for forced read-only.
- Remove microphones and cameras from your smartphone (image link). Use 3.5mm audio jack connected headphones on demand. Keep unplugged unless needed. Alternatively, use an iPod Touch which works exactly like an iPhone but without a SIM card and disconnect from the traceable phone grid entirely. Still, physically remove microphones and cameras.
- Keep every phone without the precautions taken above far away from your computer.
- Obviously remove microphones and cameras from your computer.
- Boot computer from livecd, either read-only DVD or SD card with read-only hardware switch built on airgapped computer.
- Verify all signatures always. Don't settle for checksums, rely on GPG signatures where possible.
That's a good start. Congratulations, you are now a person of interest. If one of the steps above is missing in your setup: assume that you are owned and act like you are.
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- violet
- Suspicious Little Mad Woman
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If one of the steps above is missing ..a person may as well not bother with any of the steps
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
- Plutarch
That's not what I meant. The point is that there are different levels of protection. There's a clear difference between protecting yourself against a teenager running freely available software and an oppressive government.violet wrote:If one of the steps above is missing ..a person may as well not bother with any of the steps
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