Spyware | Castellini on Computers - Computer help for beginners

Posts Tagged: spyware

The Castellini Approach to Internet Security

photo credit: The Joy Of The Mundane

This past week I saw way too many people who are not taking advantage of the free information we give out on the show and the web site. Their computers were suffocating from a preventable disease…viruses and spyware. Yes, preventable, almost 100%. And fighting the war on our home computer security front does not have to be costly or time consuming.

We talk about this subject quite a bit on the program and the web site because of its rapid growth worldwide. In today’s tip, I am providing you with links to information that we have on this site that have been up for months to years that contain the essential information about protecting your computer.

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Riding Shotgun with Rick — 5 Comments
25
Apr 09

2 laptop suggestions for college students

photo credit: jarnott

Millions of high schoolers will be graduating soon and will be leaving for their respective campuses (campii?) at the end of the summer. These students will more than likely go to college with a computer…probably a laptop. I would like to suggest two possible laptops ideas for these students.

Both of my ideas involve good systems that will allow college kids to word process, chat, email, listen to music, watch DVD’s, browse the web wirelessly(for school research of course), create presentations, spreadsheets, download and edit photos and much more. Neither involve Windows and thus don’t require a degree in computer security and maintenance. One of the computers costs between $1200-1800 and the other costs less than $700.

My recommendations stem from first hand accounts from parents whose college kids call home frequently with tales of woe about a slow, non-functioning new computer. Students need to have their computers operational, and running around to the campus IT people or dropping the computer at a fix-it shop for expensive repairs. These two recommendations will keep calls home for repair money, tales of woe, and computer down time to a bare minimum. Continue reading →

Internet Tips / Windows Tips — No Comments
16
Apr 09

Practice smarter browsing to avoid malware – Video Tip

photo credit: Denube

It seems that spyware, adware and other malware that doesn’t quite fall in the category of a virus grows by the day. Unfortunately, even the best protected computers and computer users can get hit by these sneaky destruction machines by tricking us (social engineering) to thinking we are either using, viewing or downloading something other than it is. In order to fight back, we need to be smarter Internet citizens in addition to properly protecting our computers.

Again, I’m talking mainly to Windows computer users since this scourge on digital society has little to no affect on Continue reading →

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13
Apr 09

Another plea for you to use Mozilla Firefox

photo credit: khoogheem

Over the past six months, the spyware problems infiltrating both Windows XP and Vista has become almost mythical. Spyware is the junk that gets into your computer and slows it down, prevents antivirus software from doing its job, halts Windows updates, can disable your CDROM and/or USB drives, and much more. The vast majority of it turns out to be self-induced. By self-induced, I mean that the user willingly downloaded ring tones, free music, free wallpaper, screensavers, registry cleaners, or other junk software. Even with the best security software on the planet installed on your computer system, agreeing to install junk software circumvents your security and the problems begin.

How can you prevent it? First start by protecting your system properly with the tools I have listed on every page here at HelpMeRick.com. You will find them in Continue reading →

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
9
Feb 09

Reunion spam makes a comeback

Social engineering strikes again.

Last spring, a spam posing as a reunion invitation made its rounds around the Internet. The spam/virus gets spread by an unsuspecting and less than alert computer user opens an email supposedly from a class mate inviting them to a reunion. Once the email is opened, a root-kit (hard to detect spyware/virus hybrid) gets deployed on the person’s computer and begins to spread itself from there.

This scenario repeats itself hundreds of thousands times over a couple of days and eventually infects millions of computers around the world.

A variant of the very same ploy started to make its rounds again this year coming to a crescendo over the past couple of weeks with millions more people duped.

Why are so many computer users desperate enough for friendship that after years of warnings, they continue to open up suspect emails? I cringe every time someone tells me, “I only open up emails from people I know.” Don’t you think that the degenerates in our society know that? Of course they do, and that’s why they purposely design these types of malware to take advantage of your inability to distinguish between legitimate email and suspect email. It’s also why the most visited page on my web site is about puppy scams…people, in general, don’t want to think. They want everyone else to think for them, but curse and cry when they are taken advantage.

Wake up people! The answers are out there if you want to find them and learn from them. Anyone who puts the least amount of thought into what they are doing with email should have no problems what-so-ever with this kind of tripe.

Riding Shotgun with Rick / Videocasts — No Comments
20
Dec 08

Rick’s Answers his email Videocast – 025

Questions this week ranged from anti-spyware recommendations all the to a strange singing Christmas card that played even after the computer was shut down. This week’s questions brought to you by Dave, Kristina, USSRover, AmaLia, Dave, Mary, Jessica, Bob, Mike, Gloria, and Kent.

Internet Tips / Riding Shotgun with Rick / Windows Tips — 2 Comments
17
Dec 08

Correcting some spyware infections with an often overlooked tool

Some of the nastiest spyware infections can be dealt with easier than previously thought if you try the following steps immediately after becoming infected:

Shut off your high speed modem OR simply unplug the Ethernet cable connecting your computer to the modem or router
Restart the computer in Safe Mode and attempt to run a disk cleanup from the Accessories –> System Tools menu or use the CCleaner or Cleanup program if you have them installed.
Then go to the accessories menu and run System Restore. Choose a date at least two weeks prior to the infection and restore the computer.
After the computer restarts, IF the restore was successful (and it will tell you so), run a full disk scan with your antivirus software and any anti-spyware software you have loaded
Restart your computer again, and this time connect back to the Internet
Update your antivirus and antispyware products and run another full scan

I have had good success with this routine if the infection is caught quick enough (usually within a day or so).

Riding Shotgun with Rick — No Comments
3
Dec 08

Acer Aspire One Netbook

Today, I had my first opportunity to get some hands-on time with Acer’s entry into the netbook craze, the Acer Aspire One. The young lady I helped bought a blue Aspire One on Black Friday for just over $300. Sporting a 120GB hard drive, an extremely nice 8.9″ screen, 1 GB of RAM, and Windows XP, this little unit was very impressive to look at and use. After some discussion with me, she decided that she didn’t want to leave the Windows XP on it and have to maintain security updates, anti-spyware software, anti-virus software, etc. She planned on using the netbook for traveling mostly and some email, Internet, and downloading her digital photos from time to time on it.

I decided to try installing Ubuntu’s new Netbook Remix (UNR) operating system for her. After doing some research, I discovered that before doing the Ubuntu install, a BIOS update was necessary so the SD card readers (there are two of them on the Aspire One) would work once UNR was installed. That was the biggest hurdle, and I haven’t cleared it yet. After following many instructions on the Acer and other user sites to get the BIOS installed (requires a bootable USB drive), I gave up because of time restraints. Frustrated, but not beaten, we decided to go ahead with the install of UNR. At home, I downloaded and created a UNR bootable flash drive for the install (has to be done in Ubuntu). Literally within 8 minutes of inserting the USB drive and starting the netbook, we were staring at the cleanly laid out desktop of UNR and just another 30 seconds to connect to the Internet via wi-fi. Amazing! It took nearly 40 minutes to get the computer to boot up and finish installing and configuring Windows XP when we first turned the machine on out of the box. The AspireOne community documentation at Ubuntu’s site for installing and configuring UNR is nothing short of awesome.

I need to help the young woman clean up a few little rough edges with some plug-ins and get the card readers to work properly, but overall, I was impressed and she was happy with her purchase. The Aspire One comes in a few different colors and configurations. The XP seemed snappy enough on the netbook, but I know that wouldn’t last long after all the Windows updates were installed, security software was installed, etc. UNR runs extremely fast and smooth and should be virtually trouble-free for this happy new netbook owner. You can buy the Acer AspireOne with Windows XP and use the steps I did to install UNR or stay with the XP. Or you can get the Aspire One with a special version of Linux pre-installed.

Riding Shotgun with Rick — 17 Comments
29
Oct 08

Rick’s guide to trouble free computing

Advice chair In January, this web site and my business will turn 13 years old. In that time, I have worked on thousands of computers ranging from the oldest DOS machines to the newest gaming and Mac monsters. My youngest client in that time has been 5 years old and my oldest was a 94 year old author writing a book for the first time on a PC. When your work in any field for a certain period of time, you start to spot patterns and consistencies.

After incubating the idea in my head for about six months, I want to share with you (and anyone you forward this article to) my opinion of how to use computer technology with the bare minimum of issues and cash. The following would be my advice to a computer user who truly wanted to follow my advice, no questions asked, based on my knowledge and experience.

Buy a mid-range laptop costing no more than $600. Immediately install Ubuntu Linux on the laptop and allow Ubuntu to completely erase the drive’s contents (Windows and a ton of trial ware) as it installs. Ubuntu will provide you a top notch Office productivity package (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, etc), tons of games, CD/DVD burning, secure, fast Internet browsing with Firefox, photo management and editing software, and more for no cost. Ubuntu also does not require extra security software that we use to try and keep Windows running at a decent clip.
Sign up for a Gmail email address and use the Gmail interface exclusively for email. You won’t experience spam, you won’t lose your address book, and you will be able to check your email from anywhere in the world via any computer and be completely at home with the process.
Purchase a low cost B&W HP Laser Printer. The costs of the consumables will be a fraction of an ink jet, and it will last for years and years. If you really want color, get a low cost color laser.

The only people who I can’t see using this type of a setup are those who absolutely have to use Windows only software like QuickBooks, genealogy software or other Windows only software solutions. Any other small business or home user could save thousands of dollars, upgrade less often, accrue less computer down time and repair bill costs by using this type of a simple approach to computers. The problem is, when I do give this type of advice, most people get a little apprehensive about the prospect of not being with Windows and other Microsoft products. From my 13 years of experience, it can be a huge advantage from a mental, physical, temporal and financial stand point to work with the technology proposal I just outlined.

Photo by laughlin

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15
Sep 08

What kind of computer do 3 teenagers use?

An extremely slow and sick computer!

Today, again, I ran across a family who has multiple teenagers (3 in this case) who use a computer that has become polluted with spy and adware. I see this situation again and again, week after week. This computer was less than 2 months old!

Give the typical teenager a Windows based computer (doesn’t matter if it is XP or Vista) and within weeks (sometimes hours) the computer is almost useless. Parents always ask me the next logical question, “Why did it happen?”

The first problem is not enough or the right type of anti-virus and anti-spyware protection. For Windows users, I recommend using AVG Antivirus as the first line of defense. Windows Vista users also have the almost useless Windows Defender automatically installed, but also need to utilize the anti-spyware components in AVG and also either Super AntiSpyware and/or SpyBot Search and Destroy. These programs need to be updated weekly, at a minimum, and thorough scans be performed weekly as well. I have links to all these programs in the Links and Resources section listed at the top of this page.

The second problem is using the wrong browser. No teenager should be allowed to browse the web with Internet Explorer. Most of the junk that enters computers from the web comes in via the huge security holes found in Internet Explorer. Keeping up to date with Microsoft updates and patches helps, but most people simply don’t keep up with these updates leaving the computer like a wounded lamb. Instead, use a safer browser like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or the new Google Chrome. These browsers prevent a large percentage of the junk programs that can easily penetrate Internet Explorer.

The third problem revolves around the general browsing habits of teenagers. Teens typically like to visit a combination of music download sites, wallpaper download sites, ring tone sites, social networking sites, games sites, and celebrity sites. Unfortunately, the Internet evil-doers know these patterns as well and will setup cheap knock-off sites that pretend to be legit, but throw adware and spyware as bonus add-ons to these unsuspecting computer users. Teens need to realize that their computer is not impenetrable and there are people on the web that are there to wreak havoc on their computers and wallets. Beware of deals that seem to good to be true…they are. Also, they should never give our their email address or IM (ask your kids what that is) info to any netizen asking for it. As with life, it pays to be vigilant and a little jaded when it comes to web sites and the people who run them.

My best advice to parents with teens in the household is to either invest in a Macintosh computer or install Linux on a computer that will be used strictly for the web and browsing. Linux and the Mac operating system are almost (not completely, but very close) immune from all these problems. These operating systems don’t give kids license to run rampant on the Internet, but certainly will cut down on the repair bills and down time that accompany Windows computers.

IF, parents and teens follow the steps outlined in this short article, any computer can be a safe computer. Prevention is the best medicine, but it is up to the computer user to administer and maintain the prevention.