Protect your browser from hijackers

An editorial from:
                    http://www.techsupportalert.com

                 "Gizmo's top picks of the best 
                  Tech resources and utilities" 

                 Issue 106 - 11th February, 2004 

    Support Alert is a registered online serial publication 
                         ISSN 1448-7020.

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So what to do?  

Without doubt, the most important thing you can do is to take 
all action necessary to ensure you don't get infected in the 
first place. Once infected, it's going to be increasingly 
difficult in the future to remove the scumware from your PC.

So passive measures like disk scans with SpyBot are now second 
priority. Much more important is active prevention.

As a start you should minimize your chance of infection by 
fixing Windows vulnerabilities exploited by the scumware 
merchants. Stay current with all the Windows patches by visiting 
the Windows Update often.  Better still, turn on automatic 
update notification. And don't forget to update MS Office and 
other software products on your PC. They can be exploited as 
well.

Another preventative step is to ensure your browser settings are 
safely configured.  In Internet Explorer, select Tools/Internet 
Options/Security and make sure the slider control is set to at 
least "Medium."  Then select "Custom” and set "Download signed 
ActiveX controls" to Prompt, "Download unsigned ActiveX 
controls" to Prompt or Disable and "Initialize and script 
ActiveX controls marked as unsafe" to Disable. Hit OK and exit.

Next you check your browser's current vulnerability to known 
exploits by running the security tests at these sites (Internet 
Explorer and IE based browsers only): 

http://browsercheck.qualys.com/
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/BrowserSecurity/

Prevention also means using the active anti-infection measures 
offered in some anti-spyware products. Spybot has its 
"inoculation" option. The paid version of Ad-aware has something 
similar.

One of the very best anti-infection programs is a freeware 
product called SpywareBlaster. It's not a scanner like SpyBot 
but rather a stand-alone inoculation routine. It provides 
protection against more than 1500 products that use ActiveX 
based exploits.  That's about three times as many products as 
SpyBot's "inoculate."

A companion program to SpywareBlaster is SpywareGuard. Again, 
this is not a file scanner like SpyBot. It is a protective 
program that works like an anti-virus suite by checking programs 
before they are executed.  

Both SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard are quality freeware, are 
regularly updated and have active support forums.  They should 
be on every PC. If you haven't got them, I strongly recommend 
you download and install them at the first opportunity.  Get 
them here: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

The next preventative step is to keep all your defenses current. 
In this cat and mouse game you are already at a disadvantage 
because the bad guys have the initiative.  Spybot, Ad-aware, 
SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard all have features that make 
updating easy.  Make sure you use them.
 
Finally, only use reputable anti-spyware software products like 
the ones mentioned in the preceding paragraph. Do some research 
before installing any new product. Just how embarrassing would 
it be to get infected by a product you installed to protect 
yourself!

Gizmo
Editor (at) techsupportalert (dot) com 

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