Script & Macro Viruses

Script Viruses - Types and Habitats

Script viruses (sometimes called macro viruses) generally travel embedded in email and office automation documents, although they can be found in web pages as well.

Old fashioned program viruses are usually implemented in executable system code, whereas script viruses are usually written in a powerful high-level language that is compiled and run on the fly. They often have sophisticated functionality and direct interfaces to high level applications such as word processing, spreadsheet, email, and web programs, and can wreak considerable havoc. Since they first surfaced in office automation programs, they are sometimes also called "macro" viruses. Script viruses can also propagate through IRC protocols.

On Microsoft computers, turning on your script checking virus protection is essential. However, keep in mind that there may be an associated performance hit for some applications. Many applications on Windows are written in Visual Basic, and real-time script virus checking can double the time it takes for their usual functions to run. If you find that ordinary functions take an inordinate length of time to complete, you can try temporarily turning this feature off in your anti-virus checker -- but don't forget to turn it back on afterwards!

Active threats. The following types of script viruses are currently the most active and dangerous, on the Windows platform:

Visual Basic is a flexible and powerful programming environment for Microsoft Windows, Office, and Internet applications. Script viruses written in Visual Basic can run throughout the Microsoft architecture, giving them considerable reach and power, and making them the primary virus threat today.

The first widespread Visual Basic script virus was Melissa, which brought down several of the large international corporations for several days in March 1999. Melissa traveled in a Microsoft Word document and ran when the document was opened, then opened the associated Microsoft Outlook email program, read the user's email address book, and then sent email copies of itself to the first fifty names it found. It spread very quickly.

The Melissa virus architecture was quickly followed by many similar variants programmed by hackers around the world, including the ground breaking KAK, the first Visual Basic script virus that triggered as soon as an email was opened. KAK was then followed by BubbleBoy, which triggered if an email was even viewed in the preview pane. A steady stream of Visual Basic script viruses continue to circulate to this day. There are even automated, point and click programs like VBS Love Generator to help hackers produce additional variants. Script viruses which use email to send themselves to others are also a form of worm.

The term "macro virus" is used less often, and generally refers to a virus in an office automation application macro, most commonly a Visual Basic macro in a Microsoft Word or Excel document. Macro viruses can cross system boundaries from Windows to Macintosh computers with MS Office documents. Current versions of Microsoft Office contain strong anti-macro protections to guard against known attacks.
ActiveX is one of Microsoft's distributed application technologies that enable web pages to download programs on the fly with the full power of any executable running on your machine. This makes ActiveX modules especially efficient and powerful, but also a security risk since they can create, change, and delete files, add system programming code, or take any other action your user account is allowed on your computer.

To help mitigate the risk, Microsoft provides a network architecture of encrypted security certificates for ActiveX modules. This network gives you the option of refusing the download of unsigned ActiveX modules from unknown authors, and at least disclosing the signed identity of those modules that you do accept in case they later cause problems. However, this approach is not universally accepted by the general user and professional security communities, and is sometimes called "trust me now, try to catch me later". Users running Internet Explorer on Windows machines should make sure that their browser security settings are set to "disable" for unsigned ActiveX applets, and to "prompt" for signed applets.
Hypothetical threats. The following script viruses are largely theoretical, but illustrate that they can turn up wherever there is scripting code:

Java is a standard cross platform development environment, and is often used to download scripts to add functionality like a clock or chat room interface to a web page. Java was written with a strong security model which protects your computer's data and resources, and it has so far proved remarkably resistant to script virus infection. You can turn Java off in your browser if you want to be extra careful, but it will disable some useful functionality on some web pages.
JavaScript is the standard web programming language. JavaScript also has a well-defined security model that protects data and resources, and the few JavaScript viruses that have been discovered have been mainly theoretical in nature. You can turn JavaScript off in your browser settings if you want to be extra careful, but it will disable functionality on many web pages.
MIME. The first script virus that triggered as soon as an email was opened was a MIME virus that applied to older versions of Netscape Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and Eudora Mail. In a variation on an old hacker technique, the attached MIME file was given a very long name that triggered a bug which allowed the end of the name to be run as a series of instructions, which could then be written to run the virus. However, a fix for the bug was quickly developed for each vulnerable email program, and MIME viruses have so far remained hypothetical.
Others. Several other scripting environments have also had viruses, including Corel Draw, Hypertext Preprocessor, Windows Help, Windows installation files, and Windows registry files. Anywhere there is a script interpreter there is an opportunity for a script virus to run.

Boot & Program Viruses

Boot & Program Viruses - Types and Habitats

Boot and program viruses were the first viruses. They are generally made of executable code that hides inside device boot programs and application programs, and are usually targeted for a specific computer operating system. These were the earliest types of computer viruses, and remained relatively common in the wild until overtaken in 1998 by script and macro viruses.
Boot viruses. Boot viruses hide in the boot code for a media device, such as a disk or CD, and run automatically when the media is loaded since boot programs are always the first code loaded from any device. Boot viruses proliferated on floppy disks and even CD's into the late 1990's, but aren't seen as often these days with the decline in importance of transferable, bootable media.
The first computer boot virus was built by a 15 year old kid namedRich Skrenta in 1982 for Apple II computers. Called “Elk Cloner”, it would activate whenever a floppy disk was booted on a computer, install itself on the computer, and then infect other disks used later. Once every 50 times an infected floppy was inserted in a computer it would display the following message.

Elk Cloner: The program with a personality

It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it's Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify ram too
Send in the Cloner!

Skrenta launched the virus into the wild in early 1982 by infecting his school’s computer and giving out disks at a computer club. Since viruses were not yet known and there were no safegaurds, it spread around the country and continued to pop up on Apple II computers for years afterwards.
The first boot virus to infect Microsoft computers was called Brain, created in 1986 by two Pakistani brothers, and displayed the phone number of their computer repair business.
Program viruses. Program viruses can travel on media like a CD or across the Internet by email attachment. They hide in an apparently useful program and then run when the program is opened. They are often called trojan horse viruses, after the hollow wooden horse containing soldiers that Ulysses and the Greeks gave to Minerva during the Trojan war, and from which the soldiers emerged that night to open the gates of the city of Troy to the Greek armies, thereby causing the city's downfall.

Program viruses may be deliberately hidden in a program by the developer, or surreptitiously attached after the fact at some point along its travels from computer to computer. Program viruses are also sometimes the vector of infection for boot viruses and worms.
Virus infection. A greeting card program emailed to you from a friend might display a holiday animation and song, while at the same time installing a remote access virus program that gives a distant hacker control over your computer whenever you're connected to the Internet. Similarly, a shareware program downloaded and emailed to you by another friend might have been infected with a virus on his computer or the server where it was stored.

The first thing a boot or program virus often does is insert commands and settings in the operating system so that they can operate freely, undetected, and unaudited, without warning messages or access log records. Some of them even change the Basic Input Output System (BIOS) that interfaces between the computer's hardware and software to help mask their activities.

The most sophisticated program viruses include "stealth viruses", which encrypt their contents to try and avoid detection by virus protection software, and "polymorphic viruses", which alter their content every time they replicate to try and avoid detection, which exhibits behavior just like real viruses. Most anti-virus programs can still catch most of these types of viruses.

What is IP Address? What is DNS?

For one computer to connect to another computer and transfer information, the IP address of that computer should be known. This IP Address is made of numbers. The 32 Bit IP address is divided into 4 sections of 8 bits each separted by a ‘.’ (dot). Each 8 bit is called an Octet. The value of each Octet will vary between 0 to 255.

For example, 203.116.56.34 is an IP address. As you can see there are four sections each separated by a dot.

Name Vs Number

If someone asks you whose phone number is 98343453 you may not know it. But instead if someone asks you whether you know ‘John peters’ immediately you will remember your friend. The reason is names are easier to remember than numbers. This is human nature.

In internet, there is a need to connect to a lot of different computers daily. If you have to remember the IP address of each computer in the internet, it is impossible. Because IP Address is made of numbers.

That’s why, computer scientists decided to give a name to each of these IP addresses. These computer names that represent IP addresses are called ‘Domain Names’. For example, www.yahoo.com is a domain name. It is easy to remember a name. Isn’t it?

Every computer that connects to the internet has a unique IP Address. Most of the computers especially servers will have a domain name.

DNS – Domain Name System

If you need to connect to a computer in the internet, you can use the IP address of that computer or the Domain Name of that computer.

But the computers need just the IP addresses. For our own convenience we use domain names. Therefore when we use the domain name, for example www.yahoo.com, our computer will first find out the IP address of this domain name and then uses the IP address to connect to it.

Let us assume that the IP address of the computer that you want to connect to is 123.232.231.132 and the domain name of this computer is www.xyz.com .

Now you connect to Internet, open your browser and key in the IP address 123.232.231.132 in the address bar and ‘Enter’. The browser will immediately connect to the computer because the computer knows how to use the IP address.

Now imagine that you typed the domain name www.xyz.com instead of the IP address in the browser. What the computer needs is the IP address not the domain name. Therefore the browser will try to find the IP address for the domain www.xyz.com . For this purpose it will contact the DNS (Domain Name System) server. The DNS server will find the IP address of that domain and will return the IP address to your browser. Then your computer will use that IP address to connect to that computer.

If you type the IP address, the browser will access that site immediately. If you type the domain name, there will be slight delay because the browser has to connect to DNS server first to determine the IP address. If for some reasons this DNS server is down or there is not DNS entry for that domain, then that domain name or website address will not be accessible.

Is IE loosing the battle?

IE seems to be loosing the browser battle. There have been reports that show that IE’s rival browsers are gaining grounds.

A recent study done by Net Applications which involved over 40,000 websites and a lot of technologies in August and September 2009 showed the usage of different browsers in the internet. According to this study, the usage of IE has reduced from 67% to 65.7%. The usage firefox which was introduced five years ago has gained traction. Firefox users have increased from 23% to 23.8%. Apple’s Safari users have increased from 4.1% to 4.2%. Google Chrome users have increased from 2.8% to 3.2%. Opera users have increased from 2% to 2.2%. Do not think that this figure is too small. Considering the billions of total internet users this figure is too high.

Recently firefox released its 3.5 version which introduced many new features including faster java execution and built in vide. According to Microsoft even though the IE users are decreasing the IE8 users are increasing

Think Point – Fake security software attacking the web

If you’ve come across Think Point antispyware software – be aware. It is a fake program created with intention to trick scared computer users into purchasing a useless full version.

The infection sources may vary, but most popular ones include installing a video codec on an untrustworthy site, opening an e-mail attachment from a falsified e-mail named after a courier company (such as DHL, or FedEx), pop-up’s, or as even some users reported, while playing a game on Facebook.

After clicking on fake warning messages, a Trojan is installed which opens up a “backdoor” to internet. An automated script does a series of instructions hijacking your browser and changing registry entries that result in an unusable computer – desktop icons are removed, task manager and internet connection is disabled.

Some users may be presented with a Microsoft Security Essentials Alert which is actually created by the Think Point infection. This alert promotes five security programs, including Think Point. While one is given a choice to select, Think Pont will be installed no matter what you choose.

Think Point will perform a computer scan which generates a false report including massive amounts of Trojans, viruses and spyware being found your machine. It is also impossible to run any executable application, because all is blocked by Think Point – a message will be popped up stating that executable file is already infected.

All this is done in order to scare an amateur computer user and force him into purchasing a full version, which costs 90$.

Please print these instructions:

1.       As ThinkPoint infection is not giving any access to the Desktop you must restart Windows. Just after Windows boots up, press CTRL + ALT & DEL on your keyboard at once. This should bring up the Windows Task Manager.

2.       In the Task Manager window select the Processes tab on the top.

3.       Look through the list of processes until you find the hotfix.exe process.

4.       Click left mouse button on it and press END PROCESS button situated at the bottom of the Task manager. Windows should ask you to confirm killing the process, select Yes to terminate hotfix.exe .

5.       Now ThinkPoint was disabled, and you should restore a normal desktop by clicking File menu on the Task manager, select New Task (Run) and type iexplorer.exe in the OPEN field. This will grant you access to the Internet Explorer.

6.       After this you must search and delete the hotfix.exe file on your computer which may be hidden.

7.       If after deleting the file and rebooting the pc you’re still left with a blank desktop repeat step 5. You will need to fix various registry settings or use a popular and trustworthy security program.

Download free Desktop Security software

When you are not near your computer other people can enter and read your files in your computer. They may edit them or even delete them. They can read you emails. They can format your hard disk. They can do anything they want with your computer.

In an office environment, this type of computer sabotage is possible. There are many software and applications related to ‘Desktop Security’. If you install a ‘Desktop security’ application in your computer, then you can prevent others from using your computer. If you require you can give permissions for a few.

Here are some of the desktop security software that you can use:

1. Access Denied
   Users of Windows 95/98/ME can use this application. You can install it and be sure that your computer is safe from strangers. When you boot your computer, it will prompt for the username and password. So only you can login to the computer.
   With ‘Access Denied’ you can give a unique username, passwords to your friends to access your computer. Later you can see the log file and see the time logged in and logged out by these users. So you will know exactly who used your computer.
   Another feature in Access Denied software is to block the F4 and F8 keys while the computer is booting. You can do this by choosing ‘Security->No Book Keys’ option.
   Another feature in Access Denied is the ‘Screen Guard’. This ‘Screen Guard’ feature is very handy. You can configure ‘mouse click’ or ‘hot key’ to hide the desktop whenever you want. If anybody tries to access, it will prompt for the username and password.
   Access Denied will also deny booting from floppy or CD.
   You can download ‘Access Denied’ fromhttp://www.johnru.com/accessdenied
2. Lock Out Desktop Security
   Lockout Desktop Security can be used to create policies and permissions for groups and users. You can block access to certain applications. You can block access to CD Drive. You can specify time period when people can access and when they cannot.
   You can download Lockout Desktop security software fromhttp://www.soft32.com/
3. Desktop Lock
   You can download Desktop lock fromhttp://www.toplang.com/desktoplock.htm
   Like other Desktop security applications desktop lock allows you to prevent access to specific applications, documents etc.
4. Mouse Trap
   To lock the desktop and to allow access only by logging in using username/password you can use the ‘Mouse Trap’ application. Mouse Trap also prevents the use of ‘Ctrl+Alt+Del’ and ‘Alt+Tab’ and any other system keys. You can download Mouse Trap from http://www.hotwww.com/
5. Boot Locker
   You can download Boot Locker from http://www.bootlocker.com/bl . You can use boot locker to create many users and groups. You can use this to disable and change password compulsary at frequent intervals.
   To find the latest available free desktop security software search google with the following search term http://www.google.com/search?q=%22desktop+security%22+download

How to remove hijack virus?

You may have read news about planes being hijacked. For example a passenger plane which is supposed to go to London may be hijacked by terrorists and flown to Turkey. The hijack virus does just that. If you key in a website address in your browser’s address bar and press ‘Enter’ then instead of going to that website the browser may open some other website such as an adult website or an advertisement website or a search engine website. If this happens in your computer then your browser has been infected by a hijack virus.

Why does this happen, you may wonder? This means a hijack virus has entered your computer without your knowledge and is working at its will. You can remove hijack virus and prevent it from happening using some software.

Process Guard is one such software. Just search for this software athttp://www.download.com/ and install it in your computer. This program will guard your computer against these hijack viruses

Free Password Management software

To keep computer files, internet connections and other resources just to ourselves, we use passwords. Some people use the same password for everything. This is a very bad practice. Because if someone comes to know about this password then they will get access to all your resources. There fore it is essential to have different passwords for different purposes. But this poses another problem. It becomes very difficult to remember all these passwords. Some write these passwords in their diary or write on a small paper and keep it on their table. This too is a bad practice. Because it is easy for other people to get hold of this information when you are not around.

If you could keep all your password in a database and then encrypt this database and protect it with a password then all your passwords will be safe. Then you just need to remember this one password, so even if you forget other passwords you can still use this password to open the database and check the password.

You can use a free password management software such as ‘Password Safe‘. You can download password safe from http://sourceforge.net/ and install it in your computer. Then you will never have to remember many passwords.

To create a master password

When you open Password safe for the first time it will ask you for the ‘Safe combination’ which is nothing but the master password for your password database. The safe combination password should be long and contain both numbers and alphabets so that it is difficult to guess. If you give a simple and easy to guess password then password safe will warn you. Now key in the same password again in the ‘Verify’ box and click on ‘OK’.

To add passwords to Password Safe

Click on the ‘Add Entry’ button in Password Safe. In the new dialog box give ‘group name’ (optional) and the title name and then key in your username and password. In the ‘Notes’ section write anything you want to write about the account. Now click on ‘OK’ to add this information to password safe.

As mentioned in the above paragraph add all your passwords one by one. When you close password safe program it will ask you where you want to save this password database in your hard disk. This is only for the first time.

To retrieve the password

If you forgot the password for any file or program and you want to retrive the password from password safe then password safe will first ask you for the ‘master password’. After you give the master password the database will open.

Then click on the ‘title’ for which you want to know the password. Now click on the ‘Copy password to clipboard’ button. Now the password will be copied to the clip board. You can use Ctrl + V to paste it anywhere you want.

When you exit the password safe program, it will automatically clear the password from the clipboard for security reasons.

You can also edit the password if you want.

Installing Windows XP Using A USB Flash Drive

Removable flash memory sticks are pretty much one of the most handy little pieces of technology to come along in the last couple of years. They come in various shapes and their storage size can range from a measly 128 MB to a whopping 32 GB. And you’re not restricted by what you are able to put onto these devices either. Which got me thinking today. I am regularly installing fresh copies of Windows onto new built PCs, so I look for any way to increase the speed at which my work gets done without compromising quality, of course.

So I thought, with the speed of flash drives today, it could be possible to install Windows XP onto those PCs in a much faster time than with optical media (CD/DVD). Plus with all the motherboards I use, I always make sure that the motherboards support booting from USB as it’s a very handy feature. So I decided to look into the various guides that can be found on the Internet. Originally meant for the EEEPC, I found a guide that I was able to understand. Because of the way it was written it took me longer than 10 minutes to understand the whole procedure and I’m sure the average geek would be completely confused before they had reached the second line, simply because of the total lack of explanation on the part of the guide’s creator for those who do not usually do this kind of thing.

Anyway, as with all guides, you have to realize that there is a certain amount of risk involved with the procedures I am about to give you details for and that you use this guide at your own risk; I will not be held accountable for any damages done to your hardware if something should go wrong. It will involve the use of the command prompt and it has the possibility of damaging your flash drive. Although I believe that the chances of that happening are quite slim, there is always the possibility, so I thought I would warn you before you decide if you’re going to use my guide. Now with the pleasantries out of the way, let’s get down to business. There is some preparation needed before we can start this procedure. First off you need to make sure you have the following available to you:

1. An unmodified, legal copy of Windows XP Home or XP Professional
2. USB memory stick (2 GB recommended – 1 GB minimum)
3. A motherboard that is capable of booting from a USB drive (check your motherboard manual if not sure)

As long as you have all three points above met, then you are ready to start. Just so you know, in this process your USB flash drive will be formatted, so do not use a USB that contains data vital to you. As for a motherboard that is capable of booting from a USB drive, most modern motherboards offer this as a standard feature. If your motherboard is less than two years old, chances are that the motherboard you have supports this feature.

Okay, now we have made sure that your computer is capable of installing XP from a USB disk. The next thing we need to do is to download and extract three tools that are going to help us in this procedure. You can find download links to these files below:

1. USB_Prep8
2. PEtoUSB
3. Bootsect

I suggest you download these files directly to the root of your hard drive. In other words save them to a folder on the same drive that contains your operating system — for most people this will be the C: drive. Once they are all downloaded, go ahead and extract PEtoUSB and USB_Prep8 to separate folders. Once this is done you should take the contents of the PEtoUSB folder and copy them into the USB_Prep8 folder. Once this is done, you should go back to the root of your drive and extract Bootsect to the root of the drive (program files and Windows folder is stored in this area). We do not need to worry about the Bootsect program for now, however that is simply preparation for later. And as another matter of preparation I suggest you insert your Windows XP CD, create a folder on the root of your drive, name it XP, and then copy the contents of your Windows XP CD into that folder as you will need these files soon.

Okay, now that all the preparation is out of the way, we’ll start the process. It will take on average about 20-25 minutes to complete this process depending, of course, on the speed of your PC and of the USB stick you are going to be using. I must warn you now that you should NOT close any of the windows generated by the programs I am showing you how to use until you reach the point in this guide when I tell you to do so. This is quite important because, if you happen to close any of the following windows, it is possible that you can screw up the procedure and you will have to start again. With that out of the way, as long as you follow the instructions below, everything will run smoothly.

1. Go into the folder named USB_Prep8 and double-click the following: (usb_prep8.cmd)
2. Make sure you select the newly created command prompt window and click any key to continue
3. A new program is started (PeToUSB). Do not change any of the settings; just click start and let it run
4. Once PeToUSB is finished, DO NOT CLOSE any of the windows the program created
5. Go to your start menu and click run if you’re using the classic start menu
6. Enter the following command into your run window: (CMD)]
7. Once you have run that command, a new window will appear with the words command prompt
8. Provided that you have used the file setup I suggested, input the following: ( cd \bootsect )
9. Type in the following: ( bootsect /nt52 :R ) Replace R with the drive letter of your USB drive
10. You will see the message (Bootcode was successfully updated on targeted volume) if it worked right
11. You may NOW close all the windows except for the window that was created when you ran USB_Prep8
12. Providing you closed all the right windows, the USB_Prep8 Window will now contain seven options
13. Press 1 on your keyboard — this will bring up a window. Locate your XP folder and highlight it. Click OK
14. Press 2 on your keyboard — the program will ask for a unused drive letter (example: T or Z)
15. Press 3 on your keyboard — the program will ask for your USB Stick drive letter; enter it now.
16. Press 4 on your keyboard to start the USB_Prep8 process
17. The program will ask you if it is OK to format a drive contained in the letter you gave in #14; click yes
18. The program will start to copy the needed files; be patient
19. The program will then ask you if you wish to copy these files to the USB stick; click yes.
20. Finally, once it has finished copying the files, it will ask you if you want to make the stick the preferred boot drive. Click yes, after which it will ask if you wish to un-mount the USB stick. Click yes

And that’s all there is to it. The USB flash drive is now ready to install XP to any hardware that is supported by the Windows XP CD. However there are some minor differences to installing Windows XP this way than if you would with an optical drive, which I am going to go into. Of course, as I have said before, the speed at which Windows XP installs is MUCH faster when installing using a USB stick than if you were using an optical drive (CD/DVD). But the speed comes at the price of you needing to pay a little more attention to the install itself. Now from this point on, I am going to assume that your motherboard does in fact support booting from USB and that you have gone into your BIOS and have set the USB flash drive as the first drive to be booted from (make sure the flash drive is connected before you turn power on — it helps). I cannot give a generic answer to where that option is in your BIOS; I suggest you look up in your motherboard’s documentation.

Providing it boots from the USB flash drive, you will now be shown two options. One with the words GUI and one with the words Text Mode. Choose the Text Mode option first. Now you will see what you normally would see during a CD install of XP. Just follow the on-screen instructions as always. One note is that, if you need to create a new partition for your new Windows XP installation, once the partition is fully formatted, instantly turn off the PC as the install will need to be restarted so the flash drive can recognize the layout of your partitions correctly. Follow the instructions below:

1. Create a new partition and format it as normal
2. Once the partition is formatted, restart your PC and when the options come up again choose Text Mode
3. Highlight the newly formatted partition, press enter, move down to make no changes, and press enter

Okay, now after that all goes through and the PC restarts, simply chose the GUI option on the menu and let the Windows XPinstall go along as it would normally do. I must advise that you DO NOT REMOVE the USB stick until you’re actually past the setup stage. Once you have just booted into Windows XP for the first time, you can go ahead and remove the USB stick. Congratulations! You have just installed Windows XP without the need for a CD/DVD drive.

The benefits of installing from USB are plentiful and, providing you take the time to follow the instructions above, you need never worry about scratching your Windows XP CD again. I hope that the time I spent writing this guide will help you all to decrease the amount of time you spend having to install Windows XP when you have to. Peace!

How to improve your Wireless internet and network connection?

Microsoft Windows gives you a notification whenever your wireless network has a weak signal. This is a sign that you should improve your wireless network. When you get this notification, it means that the wireless connection is not as reliable or high-speed as it's supposed to be. In fact, the wireless connection signal may be completely lost in certain areas of the house. If you would like to improve your wireless network signal, you should carry out a few of these tips. These tips will extend the wireless range. They will also improve the overall performance as well as reliability of the wireless network.

Re-position the wireless router (or wireless access point) to the centre of the house.

Place the router away from walls.

Place the router off the floor.  

Place the router away from metal objects.

Instead of using a standard antenna which you get with the router, use a hi-gain one. If the standard router is placed by an outer wall, part of the wireless signals will be directed outside the house. This will also waste the power of the router. Hi-gain antennas send the wireless signals in a single specific direction which you are able to aim on the path where you need them a large amount.

Replace your laptop or computer's wireless network adapter with a USB network adaptor. It uses an external antenna that improves the range of the signals. (Laptops which have built-in wireless normally contain outstanding antennas. They do not usually require to be upgraded.)
Add a wireless repeater to extend the signal range.

Change the wireless router's channel to increase the strength of its signal. You can do that through the configuration page of the router. The computer will detect the new channel itself.

Reduce wireless interference by avoiding wireless electronics which use the 2.4GHz frequency. You should use cordless phones which use the 900MHz or 5.8GHz frequencies.
Update your firmware updates for your router through the manufacturer's website. Update your network adapter driver through the Windows Update feature of Windows 7 and Vista or visit the website www.update.microsoft.com for Windows XP.
Upgrade 802.11b devices to 802.11g or buy a new 802.11 g equipment.  It is five times faster than an 802.11b device.

How to Secure a Wireless Network from Hackers?

The reason we secure a wireless network is to stop people from using the services of our network who don't have permission to utilize them. It is harder to secure a wireless network from hackers as compared to a classic wired network. This is due to the fact that a wireless network can be accessed anywhere inside the range of its antenna.

In order to secure a wireless network from hackers, we should take proper steps to save ourselves against security issues. If you don't secure a wireless network from hackers, you might end up without its service. The consequence might also include the utilization of our network to attack further networks. To secure a wireless network from hackers, you should follow these simple wireless networking tips:

1.       Strategic antenna placement:

The first thing you have to do is to position the access point's antenna in a place which restricts the range of its signal to go further than the required area. You should not put the antenna close to a window because glass can't obstruct its signals. Place it in a central location of the building.

Use WEP:

WEP stands for Wireless encryption protocol.  It's a customary technique for encrypting traffic on a wireless network. You should never skip it as that will allow hackers to get instant access to the traffic over a wireless network.

3.       Change the SSID, disable the broadcast of SSID:

SSID stands for service set identifier.  It is the recognition thread utilized by the wireless access point due to which the customers are capable of starting connections. For every wireless access point arranged, select an exclusive as well as unique SSID. Also, if it's attainable, hold back the broadcast of the SSID out over the antenna. It won\t appear in the listing of offered networks, while being able to provide services as usual.

4.       Disable DHCP:

By doing this, the hackers will have to decode the TCP/IP parameters, subnet mask as well as the IP address in order to hack your wireless network.

5.       Disable or modify SNMP settings:

Change the private as well as public community settings of SNMP. You can also just disable it. Otherwise the hackers will be able to utilize SNMP to get significant info regarding your wireless network.

6.       Utilize access lists:

For additional security of your wireless network, and if your access point support this feature, employ an access list. An access list lets us determine precisely which machinery is permitted to attach to an access point. The access points which include the access list can employ trivial file transfer protocol (TFTP) now and then in order to download modernized lists to steer clear of hackers.

How to make your mobile phone safe

Below are some easy to follow tips that you should be following through with if you want to make your mobile phone as safe and secure as possible...

Register Your mobile phone - The majority of people are so excited when they get a new mobile phone that they skip registering their mobile phone with the manufacturer, thinking that it is boring and unnecessary. Taking a few minutes to do it has a couple of big benefits though. Firstly, it may be necessary for the manufacturers warranty to become valid and, secondly, if it gets stolen and someone later tries to update or repair it, then it will it will be flagged up as a stolen machine and may be returned to you.

Cable Locks - Cable locks are used in a variety of other circumstances to keep thieves away, so why not use one to keep your mobile phone safe and secure too? Using even a small, lightweight one will be enough to put off most thieves, who are generally looking for the easiest target possible, which your mobile phone will no longer be.

Privacy Shield - These are used to protect the data on your mobile phone rather than the actual mobile phone itself, and should be considered by anyone who regularly uses their mobile phone in public places. They are a simple plastic device that, when attached to your mobile phone, prevent anyone not sitting directly infront of the mobile phone from seeing what is on the screen.

GPS Tracking - Stolen mobile phones can be electronically tracked and recovered. These mobile tracking systems use GPS (global positioning system) to relay the mobile phones location to a central tracking computer.

Software Tracking - Another way to increase the security of your mobile phone is by using a software tracking code placed inside the hard drive. The software, which lies inside undetected, will communicate with a central system through the Internet, for example, you can use iPhone iPhone gps tracking software for your iPhone.

Take Out Insurance - Even the most careful owner is at risk from accidents occurring. Wires can be easily tripped over or coffee can be spilled over a keyboard. An extended warranty or an insurance policy should be considered.

How to Protect Your Computer from Keyloggers

Keyloggers have been a major problem today as it does not require any prior knowledge of computers to use it. So hackers mainly use keyloggers to steal your passwords, credit card numbers and other confidential data. Below are some methods through which you can protect your computer from keyloggers:

Use a Good Antivirus

This is the first and basic step that you need to take in order to protect your computer from keyloggers. Use a Good antivirus such as Kaspersky, Norton or Mcafee and update it regularly.

Use a Good Antispyware

Since keyloggers are basically spywares, if you are a frequent user of Internet then you could be exposed to thousands of keyloggers and spywares. So you should use a good antispyware such as NoAdware.

Antilogger can be Handy

Antiloggers are programs that detect the presence of keyloggers on a given computer. Over past few years, I have tested a lot of anti-logging programs and have found Zemana Antilogger as the best antilogger.

Zemana

Normally a keylogger can be easily detected by a Good Antivirus program, but hackers use some methods such as hexing, binding, crypting and similar techniques to make it harder to be detected by antivirus programs. In this case Zemana Antilogger comes handy as the program is specially developed to protect your system against harmful keyloggers.

Online Scanning

When ever you receive a suspicious file, you scan it with online scanners such as Multi engine antivirus scanner which scans your file with 24 antivirus engines and reports it back to you if the file is recognized as a virus or spyware. This ensures that none of the malicious programs can escape from being detected as there are 24 different antivirus engines are involved in the scanning process.

Sandboxie

Sandboxie is another great program to help you protect your computer against harmful keyloggers and spywares. Sandboxie runs your computer in an isolated space which prevents your program from making permanent changes to other programs in your computer.

When ever you receive a file that looks suspicious, just run the program with Sandboxie so even if it is a keylogger or any other virus it will not make permanent changes to your computer system.

To run a program in Sandboxie follow the steps as mentioned below:

1. Open sandboxie and click on sandbox menu on the top

2. Now goto Default sandbox

3. Then click on run any program

4. Now select the file you wish to run in sandboxie and click open

Keyscrambler

Keyscrambler is one of the best protection against keyloggers that you can have, Keyscrambler is a small program which encrypts your typed keystrokes so even if the victim has installed a keylogger on your system, he or she will get encrypted keys. Keyscrambler currently supports Firefox, Internet explorer and other applications, however its premium version supports more than 160 applications.

How to Repair Registry of Windows PC

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This article explains how to inspect and repair registry errors to improve the performance of your PC. If you are a Windows user then you will most probably be aware of the fact that the registry gets corrupted over time resulting in an overall decreased performance of your computer. At times registry errors can also make your PC to freeze down and hang up every now and then causing a serious annoyance to the user. At this point, the registry needs a serious repair to bring your PC back to it’s life. Well before I tell you how to repair the registry lets see what causes registry to get corrupted.

Registry errors may occur due to installing too many applications/softwares from time to time without verifying the publishers. This may create invalid entries in the registry hive leading to errors. With the Internet boom and the era of freeware with free downloads, people often install programs from untrusted sources which results in serious damage to the registry. Since the registry is a crucial component of the Windows operating system, damage to this registry can cause system performance to drop down considerably.

How to Repair the Registry?

The best and the easiest way to repair your registry is by using a Registry Repair Tool (Registry Cleaner) which will automatically scan the registry to find invalid entries and will repair it by removing the errors with in no time. A registry cleaner is the simple and safest solution to repair registry and bring your PC back to it’s life without the need to re-install the Windows. We recommend the following registry cleaner to repair the Windows registry

Perfect Optimizer

Perfect Optimizer is one of the best and award winning registry cleaner that repairs registry to avoid PC errors such as unwanted shutdown, freezing, crashing and more. Perfect optimizer will

• Repair registry and increases your PC performance by upto 70%
• Repair registry to fix DLL errors and invalid shortcuts
• Free up virtual memory to avoid error messages
• Performs Defragmentation and Compression of the registry
• Repair registry to fix blue screen errors, system crashes, startup errors and more…

Visit Perfect Optimizer Homepage for more information on this program.

Can I Manually Repair the Registry?

Windows registry has a very complex structure with hundreds of thousands of entries embedded in it. A corrupt registry may contain thousands of invalid entries and errors in it and hence it is impractical and almost impossible to manually inspect, find and repair those errors. Also manual registry repair involves serious risk and can lead to a total system break down if done improperly. Except you are a highly experienced Windows user or a Windows expert, users are not encouraged to tamper with the registry.

Hence using a registry repair tool is the safest and easiest way to repair the registry and improve the overall performance of your PC. Registry repair tools will not only repair the registry but also maintains it’s health in a good condition so as to avoid any future damage to it. It is recommended that you periodically (daily or weekly) perform registry scans using these tools to repair the errors as and when they come up and keep your PC’s health at it’s best. Repair the registry and make your PC blazing fast like never before!