When humans think they usually tend to think local. That is just something about us that will always be true. No matter how much we try to help it, we always seem to go back to that type of thinking. But when you are thinking about a global technology like the internet you cannot afford to think locally only. This is especially true if you are running a business on the internet. It is also true when you are thinking about your cyber security.

Just recently when Apple received a piece of bad news about malware being spread that was attacking their computers, it was brought to their attention by a foreign company. The company was named Dr Web and it is a security company that is based out of Russia. Not many people in the United States had ever heard of the company before so they tended to dismiss the warning. When the data that Dr Web found was backed up by more well known security companies in the United States then the situation became more serious in most people’s eyes.

People in the United States did not think that a security company based in Russia could be trusted. Even when the security company had as good of a record like Dr Web had, trust was an issue. That is because Russia is more known in the United States for sending malware than it is for protecting against malware. But people have to realize that there is good and bad in every country. There are a lot of malware writers that live in the United States as well. What if people did not believe any of the security companies in the United States because of a few malcontents that live in their home country?

You have to go by the reputation of the country no matter where they are from. If Apple and the other people who criticized Dr Web had just taken two seconds and looked on the web then they would have known that Dr Web is a trustworthy company. But instead they did not and they simply jumped to conclusions.

Computer web security is a serious problem and a global one. If we are going to try to stomp out the problem it has to be a coordinated effort from people all around the world.

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Everyone has to be able to make a living. If you are a self confessed hacker then there are only so many ways that you can go. If you consider yourself a black hat hacker then you will most likely resort to using your technical advancement in some sort of crime. That crime might include credit card hijacking or stealing the bank information off of people. Whatever it takes for a black hat hacker to make money they will do. It does not matter who it hurts in the end.

If you are white hat hacker then the opposite is true. While it is true that you need to make money as well, you are probably not going to go to the lengths that a black hat hacker will go. But if you still want to be able to make money with the skills that you have acquired then you are going to have to get a little creative. You can either use the programming skills that you have acquired and become a normal programmer or you can go a little deeper.

Deeper means that you can work for a security company that pays you to find bugs in the software that is out there. You can either work for a company full time or you can become a freelancer and earn money every time you find a bug. But then there are the people who take it to the next level. These are the people who get really creative. Instead of working for a company to find bugs, they instead sell their bugs to the government who is willing to pay the most.

There are a lot of governments out there who are willing to pay money to have an edge up on the rest of their enemies. And since the world is connected through the cyber alleyways of the internet it pays to have the best weapons on there as well. So there are cyber security companies and independent contractors who make money selling security holes to the different governments out there no matter who they are. Some people disagree with this practice because they do not know what these governments are going to use the holes for. They could spy on enemy countries or worse yet they can use it to spy on their own people.

Making a living this way will always be controversial but at least it is legitimate.

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If you were on the internet around 15 years ago then you know how static of place it could be. It is not like the internet that we have now. The internet that we have now is full of action and video and a lot of other things that make it interesting. While the internet that we had in the past was interesting it was not as interesting as what we have now.

A big reason why the internet was able to form into the way it is now is because of the use of browsers. The browser standards changed and we were able to get a lot more interactivity with the internet. But it was not only the browsers that changed during that time. It was also the programs that came with the browsers that changed. Those programs were called plugins and we started to see a lot of them make their rise in that era. It was determined that the scripting tools and the protocol of the average browser at that time were not good enough and we needed more.

So we started to see the rise in plugins like Flash, Shockwave, Java, and many more. These plugins, once installed, allowed us to do things with our browsers that we were never able to do before. We were able to have complex animation and we were able to use the browser to run full blown applications.

The leader in the plugin revolution was one that was called Flash. You are sure to have seen flash animation at one point when you are using your computer. If you have ever seen an ad talk to you or become animated when you ran your mouse over it then there is a good chance that the ad was made of Flash. Flash comes installed in 97% of the computers that are out there. Flash is what also heralded in the video revolution on the internet. The technology behind Flash was what made websites like Youtube possible. While there was certainly video on the internet before Flash, it was a lot harder to use and no fun to try and watch either. The Flash technology changed all of that.

The sentiment towards Flash starts to change

But the public sentiment towards Flash and other types of plugins started to change a few years ago. There were many reasons but two reasons stand out above all of them. The first reason why is because Flash and other plugins were starting to become abused by advertisers and other people who developed the technology. Instead of going to a web page and having a nice peaceful time, you were instead bombarded by a bunch of ads everywhere making noise and going all over the place. This is annoying and no one wants to deal with that. So instead of blaming the people who made the ads, they instead blamed the technology itself.

Another reason why people turned against flash and the other plugin technology was because of safety reasons. You started to see more and more security holes brought in because of the use of plugins in the browser and not because of the browser itself. Every time you would hear of a major security breach in an operating system, it was not because of the operating system itself but the plugin from a browser. People in the industry really noticed this trend and they wanted to put an end to it. But they also knew that there was no viable replacement for Flash yet. That was until browsers started to become compliant with the HTML 5 specs. HTML 5 gives your browser a lot of the same abilities as Flash but with a lot less holes in your system.

Apple was the first major company to turn the tide against Flash by not letting the technology on their phones. And since the IPhones became so popular, this hit any site using Flash hard. Now we see another major company following in Apple’s footsteps.

Mozilla has decided that they are going to make flash on any website opt in on future versions of the browser. In other words, if you want Flash content to run on the browser then you have to manually hit the button to let it run. This is going to worry a lot of the average users of the web because they are automatically going to think that something is wrong with the site. This means that a lot of these websites are going to take away the flash elements of the site to something that is friendlier to the browser.

There are going to be a lot of people who argue whether this is a good thing or not. But the fact remains that Flash and a lot of the other plugins which are out there leave a lot of holes in the system. And that is something that really must be addressed.

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As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, the world will end in 2012. G Data, keen to get another security product out before the end of the Mayan calender, are well prepared though and their 2013 line up is available right now!

G Data Internet Security 2013 Review

A couple of weeks ago I took a look at G Data Antivirus 2013 and was quite impressed to be honest.

For many people I would imagine the main point of interest may be the fact that the program uses two different engines (Avast! and BitDefender) for it’s scanning. I covered that in some detail in the antivirus review so, instead of me repeating myself, I’ll let you read that for yourself.

Today I’ll concentrate on how the internet security suite differs from the antivirus program.

Installing this program is very simple indeed. Its bigger than the antivirus so it took a little longer – around 3-4 minutes from first inserting the DVD.

You simply need to follow the instructions on screen and then you’ll be up and running in no time. There is an option to register your copy later but you may as well do it straight away because you can’t update your virus signatures until you do.

When the program first loads you’ll see the screen that appears in the first screenshot below though you’ll have a red exclamation mark telling you your virus signatures are out of date – make sure you hit that Correct button straight away to deal with that issue before proceeding.

As per my antivirus review, I’m not overly inspired with the interface here. Simplistic is probably a good thing for most users who want to be able to find and tinker with the basic functions easily but it still looks a bit bland to me.

With this being an internet security suite there are many more features here than in the antivirus program:

Obviously there is still an antivirus component here. When scanning you are able to choose between two different engines or you can use both. Obviously using one engine is quicker and less taxing on your system resources but using both engines will give you an increased level of security.

Other aspects unique to the internet security suite:

Antispam

The spam filter in G Data Internet Security 2013 allows you to make many choices about how you identify spam and also how you deal with any that is detected.

As you can see in the image below, you have the option of using whitelisting, blacklists, keywords, content filters and more options besides.

If an inccoming email is identified as spam through the use of these filters then you can decide what to do with it:

• Reject the email
• Insert a warning of your choice into the subject line and then deliver it anyway
• Move the email straight to a particular folder (Microsoft Outlook only), i.e. “Spam”

Firewall

A firewall is a critical part of your internet defense these days and this one from G Data is full of useful options.

You can choose to leave it at the default level which offers a pretty good and rounded level of defense to those who don’t want to make any manual changes (or those who don’t understand whats going on here).

More advanced users will like the ability to choose which networks to protect (for those of us who use more than one), as well as the ability to play around with all of the Rule sets which control:

• Access for specific applications
• Port control
• Printer sharing
• Domain services
• Internet connection sharing
• VPN connections

Parental Controls

If you have kids then parental controls may prove useful. I say may because many kids these days know a lot more about computers than their parents do! If your kids are older then this area may not prove as effective at protecting them as you may think

The parental controls part of G Data Internet Security 2013 allows you to set up different rules for different users.

With it you can:

• block every internet site that contains particular terms
• create a whitelist so the user can only access the sites of your choosing
• set up time windows so that internet access is only available for limited periods of the day, controlled by you
• do the same as above but for computer usage in general

G Data Shredder

Another separate feature that comes with this security suite is the G Data Shredder. This allows you to permanently delete any files or folders you wish in a fairly secure manner. You can choose how many times the file or folder gets “shredded” and this certainly offers a more secure means of deleting than, say, the Recycle bin.

As its still very early in the year for 2013 programs(!) there aren’t any tests published by the independent labs (as far as I could see) so I resorted to running my own by using a list of recent nasties that I have.

When it comes to malware G Data internet security did very well indeed and blocked everything I threw its way, including both trojan samples and some pretty dodgy web links.

In terms of resource usage you have to be mindful of the engines you use. Ideally, you want to have engine A and engine B on all the time but I found that this could have an impact on system performance. Using just one engine was better than using both in such circumstances and I found engine A to be the least resource hungry of the two (you may see different results depending upon the capabilities of your own computer).

The minimum suggested system requirements for this program are as follows:

• Windows Vista or Windows 7 (32 or 64 bit) / Windows XP (SP2 or above)
• 1 GB of RAM for Vista and 7 / 512 MB RAM for XP

G Data Internet Security 2013 is an interesting program considering its use of two different scanning engines. I believe that using either engine independently will yield pretty good results but, ideally, you want to be using both to gain maximum benefit from what is obviously the key selling point of this piece of software. And for that you may need to be in possession of a pretty new computer, despite the fact that you can set the program up to scan outside of when you are using it intensively.

That said, the detection rates are good, even with just one engine engaged. Also, the firewall and parental controls are pretty good too. Additionally, the program works very well indeed with everything left just as it comes so the less computer savvy amongst you would definitely appreciate that.

Lastly, the price is very competitive too in comparison to whats currently available on the market. This is a security suite that you should at least consider.

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When you are starting a business there are a few pieces of advice that you will hear all of the time. You are sometimes told how to manage your money so that you do not go broke. Or they might tell you that you are going to want to mix the right amount of time between business and family. While all of this is good advice, the number one advice that you will receive is that you must be able to brand yourself. Either you or your business has to have a brand that people are going to trust or they’re going to go the company that they do trust.

And that is the same in computer security as well. When you are in the computer security business you have to remember that yes, you are running a business. A lot of the security companies out there are run by people who were computer security engineers or just plain old software engineers before they switched up. People like this are not usually great businessmen. Of course there are a few examples that don’t back up my point but for the most part it is true. Software engineers make horrible businessmen. They believe that the best product will always win in the marketplace but that is simply not true.

When people choose their software security solutions they usually go with the name that they have heard of and not necessarily the best solution. For most people, computer security is something that they know nothing about. They just know that it is good to have on their computer. So they go with the most popular solution which is usually also the one that has the best branding strategy.

But not all of the best antivirus solutions are the best choice just because they are popular. There is a lot of good antivirus software that flies under the radar because it is not as well known as the old stand guards of Norton and MacAfee. When you are trying to pick a solution to protect your computer you should go by the reviews of the product more than whether you have heard of the product or not. You will find that some of the best products do not have TV commercials.

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We live in a world where the touchscreen computer is becoming a normal device to have. While most of the computers out now still have a mouse attached to them, in a short while that will not be the norm for much longer. It is obvious that the world is moving to a touchscreen interface and the mouse will only be used with specialized applications. And for a lot of the kids that are young now, this will be the only world that they know. The normal everyday mouse will be in the same position that you see CD players and VCRs in.

But the problem with this reality is that there are still a lot of people who are living in a mouse world. And they have no intention until they upgrade to have a touchscreen. This means that they do not have a tablet computer yet and that they do not have a touchscreen phone either. But this also means that they should be worried in the long run. Because like we said earlier in the article, the world is going touchscreen and you will have to learn how to use the interface sooner or later. If you take a look at all of the biggest computer companies in the world you will notice that all of their devices are focusing on touchscreen interfaces. The newest Windows operating system has touch screen in mind. And Apple is trying to bring over more and more features from IOS to Mac OS X.

And if you do not learn how to use the interface correctly then you will be just like your elderly parents when they try to use a computer. You will be slow and confused by what is going on. You will not be able to handle the devices correctly and that can lead to security issues down the road if you are not careful.

Just think about how many times you would have had a serious security issue if you did not know how to move a mouse correctly. You would have installed the wrong program or say yes to the wrong dialog box while surfing the web. You might have even accidentally pasted your password to your banking website onto your twitter account for the world to see. Mistakes like this happen all of the time and they happen mostly to people who are not good with their devices.

This is why it is better for you to be ready now rather than later. Many people complain about the way that the touchscreen devices feel. They need to be able to actually feel the buttons and not just sense where they are. Soon after you use these devices you get over that very quickly. If you do not force it, you will get used to a touchscreen device in no time at all.

It would probably be better, if you are one of the people who are reluctant to switch, if you get used to using a tablet computer before getting a touch screen phone. Tablet computers are bigger and it is easier to get used to the interface. The touchscreen phones are small and they can cause a bit more frustration for a person who is just starting out.

But overall it is just better for you to get used to the devices now. If you do not then when they are all around you will have to worry about security issues twice as much because you have not learned how to use the interface.

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It is fact of digital life these days that you are going to have to create a user account on some of the web sites that you visit. The website does not even have to be important. There are just some website owners who want to start a community and for you to be able to use their resources, you are going to have to join up as well. This is why it is good that you take the time and practice good password making techniques. Because sooner or later, you are going to have to use those password skills to enjoy the internet safely.

And the reason why it is important for you to practice good password making technique is that it is inevitable that one of the websites that you use is going to be hacked. And when they do become hacked, there is a good chance that you password is going to become exposed. And sometimes that means they are going to become exposed for the entire world to see.

There are plenty of black hat hackers out there who would take your password and try to use it themselves on some of the other web sites that you might visit. But there are other black hat hackers who just do it for the fun of it and they take your information and just blast it for the world to see. Both situations are bad but the second scenario exposes you to more bad guys and is the one that you really have to be wary of.

So what do you do if that happens to you? Well, the first thing that you should be worried about is them attacking your credentials on the other websites that you visit. If you use the same username and password everywhere then that means you are really exposed. But if you practice good password technique like we talked about earlier in the article then you should be ok. And rule number one is to not use the same password on every website that you visit. If you followed that one little rule then your password on one site getting out should not hurt the other websites that you visit.

So what are the rules?

So you might be wondering what are some of the password rules that we keep talking about? Well the number one rule is in the previous paragraph if you remember. And it is probably the most important rule that we will talk about. And that rule is to never use the same password on several different web sites. Like you see, if one of the web sites that you use becomes hacked then they will still not be able to get into the other web sites you visit.

The second rule is to not create passwords that come straight out of the dictionary. The first thing that the bad guys are going to do is run a dictionary attack on any website that they want to attack. A password right out of the dictionary will allow them to do that pretty easily. So when you are creating your password make sure you put plenty of numbers and strange characters in there.

The next thing that you want to do when it comes to creating passwords is to use as many characters as you can. The longer a password is the harder it is to crack. So you want to make sure that your password is one of the ones who is hard to crack. Some of the web sites will have limits on how long you can make the password. So make sure you make it as long as their limits allow. You do not want to use passwords that you will be able to remember. That usually means that they are easy to get pass. You should really use some type of password manager tool so that you can make hard to crack passwords. That way you will not have to remember the password in your head and you will feel safer all at the same time.

Your password being exposed is bad. But if you follow the proper procedures when you are creating a website account then you should be OK. But as we said earlier in the article, sometimes the website is hacked and it has nothing to do with you. Those are the times when it is a good thing that you did not use the same password on that site that you did on the other websites you visit. If you did then you would end up with a lot more problems than you have now.

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Would you like to search the web using Google without letting the guys in Mountain View know what you are looking for?

If so, you need the GoogleSharing add-on for Firefox from Abine.

GoogleSharing Firefox Add-On

You can acquire this add-on by visiting Abine’s site or directly at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/googlesharing/

Either way, you’ll end up seeing a screen that looks identical to the one below:

Here you need to click on the green + Add to Firefox button.

At this point Firefox will ask you to confirm that you really do wish to install the add-on (you do!) and you will likely have to restart your browser.

When Firefox opens up again you will be presented with your normal browser window. However, if you scoll down to the bottom of the page and look to the right you’ll notice that there is a small notice there, saying Google Sharing Enabled.

Now, when you search through Google your queries will be routed via a proxy server in order to keep them private.

If you click on that notification in the bottom right of your browser then you’ll be able to enter the Settings as seen above. Here you can add or edit existing proxies.

If you wish to turn GoogleSharing off then that is incredibly easy to do – just click on that Google Sharing Enabled notification and it will be turned off.

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Dealing with the modern day cell phone can be tricky. While it may not seem like it, that device that stays in your pocket most of the time is actually a really complicated piece of machinery. And we are not even just talking about the modern day smart phones like the IPhone and the Android based phones that you see around all of the time. A lot of the phones that they call “feature based” cell phones are pretty complicated as well. Just like with all pieces of complicated machinery that we deal with there is a good side and a bad side to all of them.

You modern day cell phone is a great tool to use. We have advanced a great deal with the use of cell phones. It may not seem like it now but the use of cell phones as an everyday tool has streamlined society. You can really see it when you look at cell phone usage in the smaller, third world countries that are out there. For many people in these countries the use of the cell phone has connected them to modern day society. They are not able to afford the TV’s and computers at their home. But they are able to afford a cheap cell phone. And that cell phone allows them access to the internet where they are able to do work and also have entertainment. There are industries being built upon cheap cell phones in third world countries. So as you can see it is a good thing that they are here. While many people in first world countries see the invasion of cell phones in everyday parts of life as a nuisance, there are people who are really glad that they are here.

But as we said earlier in the article, there is a dark side when it comes to the usage of these cell phones. And we are not talking about the dark side that comes from changing societal norms. We are talking about the dark side that comes from the bad guys using the technology against you. And we have seen this in every type of technology throughout the ages. There was no doubt that the same thing would happen to cell phones as well. But now it is happening at a faster rate than we expected. So all that we can do is prepare and become as cautious as we are on the computer. If not the bad guys will be able to catch us with our pants down and that will be no fun at all.

How are they turning the phones against us?

There are several ways to answer this question. First of all the phones are being used against in a really personal way. Second of all, the phones are being turned against us by being used as a weapon against society.

When we talk about the phone being turned against personally, we are talking about someone being able to hack into the phones and getting to our personal information. They then use that personal information against us. They can use that information against us in a numerous amount of ways. They can use it to try and blackmail us. If we do not do what they say they will release the information to the public. There are a lot of people out there who would rather succumb to a blackmailer than be personally humiliated on the internet. They can also sell off our personal information to the highest bidder. This is what happens most of the time and the results can be damaging to your personal life. You can spend years cleaning up the financial damage that is the result of something like this happening. As you can see, there are several ways that the information on the phone can be used against us. That is why protection of the data on our cell phone is of our own self interest as well as a public one.

When we talk about the phones being used as a weapon against society, we are talking about smart phones mainly. And since smart phones are like mini computers, they are able to do a lot of the same things that computers are able to do. And that means they are able to become part of a botnet. No longer is it a computer only party when it comes to botnets. The bad guys are able to attack your phone as well to make it part of the festivities. Every time your Smartphone is on it can be attacking someone halfway around the world.

As you can see, when it comes to your modern day cell phone, it is in your best interest to try and protect it. If you do not then there is a fine that you are going to pay, it just will not be financial.

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You are often told do not look a gift horse in the mouth. And for the most part that is true. But it is not true in every case. On the internet a lot of stuff that you see is free. And a lot of people out there consider being free as being a gift. And even some of the vendors who give this stuff consider it as a gift to the people who are interested in what they do. But if you want to be safe on the internet you cannot look at free items as a gift. You must be more careful than that. You have to look at everything with a skeptical eye when you are on the internet and that includes the items that are free.

No-one has ever had to pay to get a virus. Or any other type of malware in fact. They usually travel on the backs of the free objects that are out there. Most people think that they only have to worry about malware when they visit web sites which are considered out of the mainstream. But that is not true at all. Malware can be picked up from anywhere and it is usually wrapped in a free package.

For example, when you are on a mainstream website like Facebook and you see an offer to enter a sweepstakes for free you should be wary. This is a favorite trick of the bad guys to lure you to one of their web sites. And when you are on their website you will have a package downloaded to your computer without your knowledge. Or if you are on Facebook and you find that someone is offering your favorite application as a free download. For example, it could be your favorite game that is available to be downloaded. Again, this is how black hat hackers are able to trick people. They will use the same logos and pictures as your favorite product and when you go to download it the trap is then set. You have all by yourself exploited your computer. They just needed to lead you into the honey pot. And you took the bait hook line and sinker.

The bad guys love free because they know that they can get your money down the line. So if you want to stop that from happening then make sure you sure you give a discriminate eye to free items just like everything else.

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