Keep Changing Your Antivirus : CRUDE but EFFECTIVE Solution to curb Virus menace

1.    We all understand the importance of anti virus today.From a naive user point of view, a user can go for the cheapest of the lot or may be if some one is worried enough he would go for the costliest one....but does that matter in an overall context? I mean w.r.t to the serious business model that this antivirus corporate sector has emerged like....lets see it here down below that brings out the country association of each leading antivirus company :

AVG                                                        :  Czech Republic

Kaspersky                                                :  Russia

Avast                                                        :  Czech Republic

Norton Symantec                                      :  U.S

Avira                                                         :  Germany

E-Set                                                        :  Slovakia

F-Secure                                                   : Finland

McAfee                                                     : U.S

MSE(Microsoft Software Essentials)          :  U.S

Panda                                                        :Spain

2.   Sadly we see,there are no Indian companies in this short list.Besides these,if we get specific to India we can quote two companies viz : Quick-heal and K7 Computing..well....that's not the point that I am here to share....the thing to note here is that all these leading companies have got a affiliation with some other country and none is Indian.So when we blindly load a antivirus or a internet security suite in our systems just on faith and word of mouth publicity from peers and friends...are we doing the right thing ? Do we know what is running in the background ? In the name of uploading our dumps what actually goes to their servers? What information does it contain?How does that company identify a virus or a malware?what's the logic that finds a virus?...all these questions are critical because this all is happening in our own machines.....but most of us hardly bother about all this...coz we have faith!!! :-)...and also because there are no standards existing for defining a QR for a antivirus....there is none to cross check what's being cooked?

3.  Besides having a question mark  on the privacy issues...lets think about the logic being applied or the signatures being released to thwart the known threats....but do we know that more then the known virus list it is the ZERO DAY threats that are getting serious by the day....off-course few bright companies are trying to check that by working on behavioral aspects of a virus or a suspected file...but that has it's set of constraints and is often limited in detecting....so whats the solution.....i recommend using all trial versions for a month each of all leading companies that will pass your one year and then format your windows PC and then start again.....a cheap...crude method of using the best without spending a penny!!!!!!!!!!!!

4.   By the way,just for info...virus detection by various companies have their own speeds...a company like kaspersky may be able to detect a virus soon and another company may detect it later or may not even at times detect one....and this time lag of detection is critical to all users!!!!!a second of compromise is enough on your PC with loads of bytes to upload in a matter of a seconds!!!

Comments invited!!!!

McAfee : Runs on Windows/Linux and from Police

1.    Strange is the heading and so is the story....according to the news doing the rounds in cyber space.Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee says he is moving every four hours to avoid Belizean police who wants to question him about the murder of his neighbor, a fellow American....how true or untrue is this ...m no one to comment....but being an ardent McAfee user for long on my various VMs....I would like to wish him the best.....more on the story that I read from is available here.....

9TH JULY 2012 : R u a Victim?

1. All the fuss about 9th July that says about the risk of "DNSChanger" malware, which will result in your computer getting disconnected from the Web on July 9 if you don't clean it up. You won't be able to go online, and you'll need to contact your service service provider for help getting the malware deleted before you can reconnect to the Internet....strange it may sound...but it is true...even the FBI has given a warning sort at its link here at https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS

2.  Just to check if u r a likely victim,McAfee has created a link at www.mcafee.com/dnscheck for you to find out if u r a likely victim or not ? I checked out the same on my PC....it showed the following screen shot.....

3.   Do check out urs....and rectify if need be....

OIL & GAS : CYBER HACKED

1.    McAfee has recently revealed and confirmed about computer hacking on un-named global oil, gas and petrochemical companies, and individuals and executives in Taiwan, Greece, and the United States, to acquire proprietary and confidential information. This has also been confirmed by five oil and gas companies that had  that the attacks took place, and the attackers were looking for documents about oil and gas exploration and bidding contracts.The source of the attack as usual has been found to be from 'several locations in China'.(Is there any thing new about this ?????)

2.    Oil companies expect such attacks getting more frequent and more meticulously planned. The determination and stamina shown by some modern hackers has increased and there are more multi-pronged, co-ordinated attacks. 

3.    Hackers have started bombarding the world's computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption.Since Computers control a relatively high percentage distribution in systems,thus are increasingly becoming vulnerable to cyber attacks that could put fuel production technology in the docks!!!

4.    The issue is indeed alarming and needs urgent attention at global level.It is not that my country is not effected or why should I be bothered ?We all are going be effected in the long run because we all r users and part of the last mile chain.Stuxnet,Duqu etc are some of the culprit virus which have been caught doing the action.What about the other thousands and may be millions who are already into action in the background.Japan has recently come up with the good virus ie CYBER WEAPON.Now this one acts like a immunization pill.It resists the virus.About 3 yrs and few billlion dollars have gone into the making.This is just the beginning and I am sure in the rat-cat race aka the good/bad guys of the cyber space there will be moments when the cyber crime over shadows the strengths of cyber power...but its upto the overall cohesive planning that all countries have to work together at the earliest.If late,there will be no other chance.Hackers are already doing it together as one team.....but we all act as teams of different nations.....we should be one GLOBAL TEAM!!!!

5.   Thanks  http://www.mcafee.com 

Security Enabled Hardware :INTEL - McAfee Merger

1.      “Security is more effective when enabled in hardware” provisions for something in the pipe known as Security Enabled Hardware.Howzzz that???? There has been a lot of speculation about the rationale behind Intel's recent acquisition of McAfee....well if u r not aware of this Intel’s proposed $7.7billion purchase of McAfee that comes as the most magnanimous takeover deal in the chip giant’s 40-odd-year history....u better be now....although there is no product roadmap to speak of yet.

2.       McAfee technology deeply desegregated into Intel products would mean adding security functionality into Intel’s chip. But would this pushing security into silicon be able to negate the increasingly sophisticated and dynamic threats from cyber crime? Though components of security could be significantly enhanced if chips were designed integrating this way. What about updates,patches etc

3.       Security in the 21st century is about being dynamic, responding to the ever-changing threat landscape in real-time, which you can do with a cloud-based system powered by a network of threat intelligence sensors and reputation-based technologies that stop threats before they even hit the device. Pushing security down to the hardware level makes it very difficult to be reactive, agile or fundamentally secure.

4.       Thanks http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com