Apple removes “more secure than Windows” claims

by Kevin McLaughlin

Apple recently changed the wording in the “Why You’ll Love A Mac” section of its website, removing longstanding claims about Macs being more secure than Windows PCs.

For years, Apple’s marketing has centered on the notion that Mac users are immune to the malware that routinely causes headaches for PC users.

Here is how Apple used to phrase this: “A Mac isn’t susceptible to the thousands of viruses plaguing Windows-based computers. That’s thanks to built-in defenses in Mac OS X that keep you safe, without any work on your part.”

But sometime in the past few days, Apple changed this message to read: “Built-in defenses in OS X keep you safe from unknowingly downloading malicious software on your Mac.”

Apple also changed its description of OS X from “It doesn’t get PC viruses” to “It’s built to be safe”.

The original Apple web page, dated June 9 used to be able to be seen via Google cache, but not anymore.

The removal of Windows comparisons could signal a change in Apple’s security marketing strategy. Apple’s devilishly effective “Get a Mac” marketing campaign focused on the superior security of Macs over Windows PCs, and while researchers have warned that Macs are not inherently more secure, many Mac users still operate under that assumption.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the website changes. But security experts suspect that the increasing attention the company is getting from malware authors did play a role in its decision to remove references to Windows.

“Apple does not want to lose its image as a secure platform,” Andrew Plato, president of Anitian Enterprise Security, said in an interview. “A lot of people still see their Mac as fundamentally more secure than Windows. Flashback proved that Macs are just as vulnerable.”

Macs get more attention from attackers

As more iOS devices make their way into businesses through the bring-your-own-device phenomenon, Mac adoption in businesses is also rising, creating a more inviting target for attackers, according to Andrew Brust, CEO of Microsoft analyst firm Blue Badge Insights.

“Macs can’t keep that low profile anymore, and the bullies are starting to target it, with increasing frequency,” Brust said.

Apple has kept security under the same cloak of secrecy as the rest of its operations, but there are signs that may be changing. Next month, Apple is slated to take part in the Black Hat security conference for the first time. Dallas De Atley, manager of the platform security team, will give a talk there on key security technologies in iOS.

On Monday at the opening of its Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple offered insight into the security improvements in OS X Mountain Lion, which is slated for release in July. The big new feature is Gatekeeper, a security mechanism that allows OS X developers to digitally sign their apps, thereby preventing users from accidentally installing malicious software.

Article Source: This article originally appeared at crn.com

Tips For Avoiding Social Networking Disasters

If you are a business owner thinking about engaging in social networking as a tool for your business, take the time to read the following article from the North American Press Syndicate. 

Tips For Avoiding Social Networking Disasters

North American Press Syndicate

“Small businesses need effective, low-cost marketing strategies, and tools like Facebook and Twitter deliver megahits for microbudgets. Yet while many business owners are being advised to engage customers via social media, not all are informed of the risks.

Social network sites are fertile waters for Internet pirates who troll for unsuspecting victims, hoping to steal data by planting malware in the form of computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses and spyware.

If you are a small-business owner, work for one or hope to become one, these tips can help keep your business data secure:”

 

Avoid Social Networking Disasters

Norton Security Standard

What Antivirus software do we recommend?

Norton Security StandardUp until about 2012, I was of the opinion that AVG Free was as good as any Antivirus software, on the proviso that you didn’t do stupid things online like visiting porn websites, clicking on links in emails that were obvious phishing scams and making sure you kept Windows up to date along with Java, Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader.

Well all that still stands, except that I now recommend Avast Antivirus as a free alternative. But I have found there is an increasing number of really nasty viruses out there that are just getting past the Free Products, and as such, I have now changed my thinking and moved to the Norton Security suite of products by Symantec, and now recommend this as my preferred Security solution.

I had an experience a number of years back that taught me a valuable lesson.  Being in the industry that I am in, I should have known better, but like all of us I got complacent.

I used a USB Flash Drive with some Virus Removal tools on an infected PC.  The PC had a nasty Rootkit Virus among other things, and it transferred the virus to my USB Drive.  When I got back to the office I wanted to retrieve a log report off the USB Drive and plugged it into my PC which was protected by AVG.  Well it turns out it wasn’t very well protected at all because the virus was instantly transferred to my PC without so much as a peep out of AVG or indeed any other sign.

The first I knew about it was when I started receiving 100’s of returned emails with the usual spam topics and a phone call from my web host telling me they had disabled my email accounts.  What followed was a time consuming effort to remove the virus and it was at this time I changed my recommendation from AVG to the Norton suite of products.

Traditionally I haven’t been a fan of Security Suites, and I’m still not, but Norton these days is minimal in it’s intrusiveness and uses fewer system resources than some of the others, and more importantly it detects those nasty viruses that AVG didn’t and still doesn’t.

FYI we sell Norton Standard for $29.  This will cover 1 PC’s for 12 mths.

How Can You Find Out If Someone Is Hacking Your Computer?

Computer-Hacker

 

Here is an interesting article about what signs to look for to determine whether you may be infected with viruses/malware that allow a hacker to take control of your PC.

 

 

 

How Can You Find Out If Someone Is Hacking Your Computer?

by Gaurav Srivastava

Many of you become innocent victims of hackers who break in your computers and steal all they can from the credit card details, bank information, emails, passwords, to professional documents among other critical things. You cannot really avoid hackers, their viruses and malware software when you are online but yes you can certainly avoid being a victim. This free virus removal support guide discusses how you can find out if someone is hacking your computer.

Step 1

When you reboot your computer, it reboots twice instead of once. It happens because the hacker has to boot his server in order to keep accessing your Windows or Mac computer. Thus, your computer quickly reboots after you reboot it and the startup screen appears twice. Another symptom of being hacked or virus-infected is when your computer reboots or shuts down on its own time and again. It means it doesn’t seek for your mouse or keyboard prompts to be shut down or restarted. When you attempt to access a program on your computer, you are not able to do it. You cannot access Task Manager, the Start menu or anything on your computer.

Step 2

When you open your web browser, some other website loads up but not your regular home page. When you search for something in your search engine, you are being redirected to websites that you have never browsed or even heard of. These can be adult or malicious websites prompting you to download adult materials or fake virus removal tools. If your web browser has a new toolbar, add-in, or plug-in that you did not install, it indicates that your browser and computer has been hacked. You do not see your usually plug-ins, add-ins, or toolbars when the browser is hacked. Besides, if your internet speed is really slow, it indicates your computer has a virus.

Step 3

If your CD- or DVD-ROM drive opens up without your action. Your computer has missing icons like Network Places, antivirus, or Outlook etc. However, you see new programs like virus removal tool (that you didn’t even download), music file etc. showing up on your desktop. If you see that your computer clock shows a different date & time, time zone settings, and daylight savings etc. (unless you have changed them), it has a stubborn, dangerous malware.

Step 4

If you have a firewall program like ZoneAlarm installed on your computer, it can tell you if someone has tried hacking it. Open ZoneAlarm or the firewall program you have and check if it has logged any malicious program entry that was attempting a server setup on your computer. If your firewall or antivirus program takes forever to scan your computer, it indicates that it has been compromised. If your antivirus icon is missing from your computer and it does not even open once you have found it, it has a virus that has disabled it to prevent itself from being removed.

Step 5

If you run a virus scan from your antivirus software, it shows multiple infected files and programs that you never even downloaded to your computer. All of a sudden you have multiple files with weird names like mslove.exe, abcd1234.exe, or giaehi45.jpg etc. in your computer. all of a sudden your computer starts taking forever to open a small program like Run or Command Prompt etc. The CPU usage shows 100% (maximum) for a small process like explorer.exe.

Step 6

When your friends tell you about the new links or posts you have shared (that you have never actually shared) on your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter profile. When your friends or relatives receive bogus emails containing adult or objectionable materials, link etc. from your email address. When your credit card or online banking does not accept your password despite that you have it correctly and have not changed it in the recent past.

The Author of this article is associated with V tech-squad Inc, V tech-squad Inc. is a cloud based technical support provider to consumers and small businesses. if you have any problem while performing the above steps and need technical assistance for online virus removal, You can reach V tech-squad online technical support at their Toll Free No +1-877-452-9201.

About V tech-squad Inc.

V tech-squad Inc. is a cloud based online technical support provider to consumers and small businesses. V tech-squad provides support to users for issues with their PCs, Mac’s, Tablets, Phones such as iPhone and Blackberry and devices such as MP3 players, Printers, Scanners, Fax, Wireless networking gear, Netflix, Roku boxes and TVs. With an obsessive focus on quality and building technical expertise, V tech-squad continues to maintain an issue resolution rate of more than 90%. V tech-squad’s credibility has been tested by more than 10,000 customers. Currently V tech-squad provides support services to consumers and small businesses in United States. For more information on V tech-squad, Inc. visit vtechsquad.com.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Online scam artist tactics exposed

This video specifically talks about Craig’s List, but equally applies to Ebay, Gumtree and every other online selling and buying service.

Given that so many people fall for these scams, it’s worth taking a look.

The original YouTube video is shown below.

What’s the difference between SSD & Standard Hard Drives?

Until recently, that average PC buyer had next to no choice when choosing what type of primary storage they got with their laptop, netbook, or desktop. If you bought a netbook or ultraportable, you more than likely had a Solid-State Drive (SSD) installed as the boot drive. Every other Desktop or Laptop would have had a standard Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Now however, you have may have the option of configuring your system with either an HDD, SSD, or in some instances both. But how to choose? Let me explain the differences between SSDs and HDDs, and detail the advantages and disadvantage of both to help you come to your decision.

What is a HDD and what is a SSD? The traditional spinning hard drive (HDD) is the standard storage you traditionally find in a computer. Hard drives are essentially platters that have a magnetic coating. It is this coating that stores your data, whether that data consists of documents, photos, or your digital music collection. A read/write head on a movable arm accesses the data while the platters are spinning in a hard drive enclosure.

A SSD does much the same thing functionally (saving your data while the system is off, booting your system, etc.) as a HDD, but instead of a magnetic coating on top of platters, the data is stored on flash memory chips that retain the data even when there is no power present. This memory can either be permanently installed on the system’s motherboard (like on some small laptops and netbooks), on a PCI/PCIe card (in some high-end workstations), or in a box that’s sized, shaped, and wired to slot in for a laptop or desktop’s hard drive (common on everything else). These flash memory chips differ from the flash memory in USB thumb drives in the type and speed of the memory. Flash memory in SSDs however, is faster and more reliable than the flash memory in USB thumb drives. Because of this, SSDs are more expensive than USB thumb drives for the same capacities.

Advantages/Disadvantages

SSDs and HDDs both do much the same job. They house your Operating System, store your applications and your data. But each type of storage has its own unique set of features. The questions are, what’s the difference, and why would a use one over the other?

Price: To be frank, SSDs are really expensive in terms of dollars per GB. For the same capacity and form factor you will pay up to 5 times as much. Since HDDs are older, more established technologies, they will remain the less expensive option for the foreseeable future.

Maximum and Common Capacity: SSDs are available in sizes up to 1TB. But those are very rare and super expensive. You’re more likely to find sizes from 80GB to 300GB as primary drives in systems, although having said that, you’d be less likely to find an 80GB HDD in a PC these days, as 120GB is considered a “base” size for a system in 2011.

Speed: This is where SSDs excel. A SSD equipped PC will boot much quicker than one with a HDD. A HDD requires time to speed up and reach operating specs, and will continue to be slower than a SSD during normal operation. A PC or Laptop with a SSD boots faster, launches programs faster, and has higher overall performance.

Fragmentation: Because of the nature of a HDD, HDD’s work best with larger files that are laid down in contiguous blocks. That way, the drive head can start and end its read in one continuous motion. When hard drives start to fill up, large files can become scattered around the disk platter, which is otherwise known as fragmentation. While read/write algorithms have improved where the effect in minimised, the fact of the matter is that HDDs can become fragmented, while SSDs don’t care where the data is stored on its chips, since there’s no physical read head. ***Note. If you’re using an SSD, you should not be defragmenting the drive to avoid excessive wear and tear. In fact, Windows 7 is smart enough to disable defrag for SSD drives.

Durability: A SSD has no moving parts, so it is more likely to keep your data safe in the event that you drop your laptop or your system is shaken or knocked while it’s operating. Most HDDs park their read/write heads when the system is off, but they are moving over the drive platter at high speeds when they are in operation. But even parking brakes have limits. If you’re rough on your equipment, a SSD is recommended.

Availability: Even with the flooding in Thailand in late 2011 (a major HDD manufacturing center), HDDs are more plentiful than SSDs. Look at the product lists for any Hard Drive manufacturer, and you’ll see many more HDD models than SSDs. For PCs and Laptops, HDDs won’t be going away, at least for the next couple of years anyway. You’ll also see many more HDD choices than SSDs from different manufacturers for the same capacities.

Form Factors: Because HDDs rely on spinning platters, there is a limit to how small they can be manufactured. There was a push to make smaller 1.8-inch spinning hard drives, but that stalled at around 320GB, since the MP3 player and smartphone manufacturers have decided to use flash memory for their primary storage. SSDs have no such limitations, so they can continue to shrink as time goes on. SSDs are available in 2.5-inch laptop drive size, but that’s only for convenience because they can be made smaller. As laptops become slimmer and tablets take over as primary web surfing platforms, we should start to see the adoption of SSDs increase rapidly.

Noise: Even the quietest HDD will emit a bit of noise when it is in use from the drive spinning or the read arm moving back and forth. Faster hard drives will make more noise than slower ones. SSDs make virtually no noise at all, since they have no moving parts.

Overall: HDDs win on price, capacity, and availability. SSDs work best if speed, ruggedness, noise, or fragmentation (technically part of speed) are important factors to you. If it weren’t for the price and capacity issues, SSDs would be the winner hands down.

As far as longevity goes, while it is true that SSDs wear out over time (each cell in a flash memory bank has a limited number of times it can be written and erased), thanks to TRIM technology built into SSDs that dynamically optimises these read/write cycles, you’d be more likely to dispose of the system for obsolescence before you start running into read/write errors. The possible exception are high-end multimedia users like video editors who read and write data constantly, but those users will need the larger capacities of hard drives anyway. Hard drives will eventually wear out from constant use as well, since they use physical recording methods.

The Right Storage for You

So, does an SSD or HDD (or a hybrid of the two) fit your needs? Let’s take a look:

HDDs

Multimedia hoarders and heavy downloaders: Video and Music collectors need space to store their files, and you can only get this space cheaply with HDDs.

Budget buyers: Ditto. Plenty of space for few dollars. SSDs are too expensive for $500 PC buyers.

Graphics Artists: Video and photo editors fill up storage quickly and wear out storage through overuse. Replacing a 1TB HDD will be cheaper than replacing a 500GB SSD.

General users: Unless you can justify a need for speed or ruggedness, most users won’t need expensive SSDs in their system.

SSDs

On the road: People that shove their laptops into their bags indiscriminately will want the extra security of a SSD. That laptop may not be fully asleep when you violently shut it to catch your next flight. This also includes folks that work in the field, like utility workers and university researchers.

Speed Demons: If you need things done now, spend the extra dollars for quick boot ups and program launches. Supplement with a storage SSD or HDD if you need extra space (see below).

Graphics Arts and Engineering: Yes, I know I said they need HDDs, but the speed of a SSD may make the difference between completing two proposals and completing five for your client. These users are prime candidates for dual-drive systems (see below).

We’re talking primarily about internal drives here, but the same applies to external hard drives. External drives come in both large desktop form factors and compact portable form factors. SSDs are becoming a larger part of the external market as well, The same sorts of logic applies, ie, if your on the road, you will want an external SSD over a HDD if you’re rough on your equipment.

Hybrid Drives and Dual-Drive Systems

Back in the mid 2000?s, some hard drive manufacturers came up with the idea that if you add a few GB of flash memory to a spinning platter type HDD, you’d get a so-called “Hybrid” drive that approaches the performance of a SSD, with only a slight price difference with a HDD. All of it will fit in the same space as a “regular” HDD, plus you’d get the HDD’s overall storage capacity. The flash memory acts as a buffer for frequently used files (like programs or boot files), so your system has the potential for faster boot times and quicker program launching. The flash memory isn’t directly accessible by the end user, so they can’t, for example, install an Operating System on the flash memory chips. In practice, these hybrid drives are still more expensive and more complex than simple hard drives. They work best for people on the move who need large storage, but need fast boot times too. Since they’re an in-between product, they don’t necessarily replace dedicated HDDs or SSDs.

In a “Dual-Drive” system, the system manufacturer will install a small SSD primary drive (C:) for the Operating System and programs, while adding a larger storage drive (D: or E:) for your data files. While in theory this works well, in practice, manufacturers can go too small on the SSD. Windows itself takes up a lot of space on the primary hard drive, and some apps can’t be installed on the D: or E: drive. Some capacities like 20GB or 32GB may be too small. 80GB is a practical size for the C: drive, with 120GB being even better. You will of course need physical space inside the PC or laptop to hold two (or more) drives.

Last but not least, a SSD and a HDD can be combined on systems with technologies like Intel’s Smart Response Technology. SRT uses the SSD invisibly to help the system boot faster and launch apps faster. Like a hybrid drive, the SSD is not directly accessible by the end user; rather, it acts as a cache for files the system needs often (you’ll only see one drive, not two). Smart Response Technology requires true SSDs, like those in 2.5-inch form factors, but those drives can be as small as 8GB to 20GB and still provide performance boosts. Since the operating system isn’t being installed to the SSD directly, you avoid the drive space problems of the dual-drive configuration mentioned above. On the other hand, your PC will require space for two drives, a requirement that may exclude some small form factor desktops and laptops. You’ll also need the SSD and your system’s motherboard to support Intel SRT for this scenario to work. All in all it’s an interesting workaround.

It’s unclear whether SSDs will totally replace traditional spinning hard drives, especially with shared cloud storage waiting in the wings. The price of SSDs is coming down, but still not enough to totally replace the TB of data that some users require. Cloud storage is an option but it isn’t free either. Home NAS drives and cloud storage on the Internet will alleviate some storage concerns, but local storage won’t go away until we have wireless Internet everywhere, including planes and in the outback.

Ditch Dropbox – Setup Windows Live Mesh

The Easy Way To Sync Files Between PC’s to PC’s to Mac’s and Cloud

Are you using the 2GB free version of Dropbox ? If you don’t know what is Dropbox, it’s okay, there is something better than Dropbox, and it’s called Windows Live Mesh.

Right out of the box Windows Live Mesh offers you 5GB of free cloud storage space. Compare to Dropbox’s 2GB basic free plan, and you’re getting an additional 3GB cloud storage. (Also note, the distinct difference between cloud storage hosted by Microsoft and cloud storage from Amazon, which Dropbox still relies upon, and its tendency to go down from time to time.)

Sounds pretty good for additional free cloud storage? Well there is even better news, Windows Live Mesh doesn’t just sync to the cloud, it also allows you to sync files and folders to other PCs or Macs with almost no limit.

With multiple computers that have Windows Live Mesh signed-in, you can sync peer to peer without even sending files to Microsoft.

If you have two or more computers with Windows Live Mesh installed, you can sync folders between them (peer-to-peer). With Windows Live Mesh, you can sync up to 200 folders, each up to 50 GB in size and containing up to 100,000 files. When you sync folders between computers, any changes you make on one computer will be made on the other whenever the computers are online at the same time. The contents of the synced folders are saved on all of the computers, so you can still work on them even when you’re not connected to the Internet.

Do the sums.  200 folders times 50 GB, that’s almost 10TB of files that can be synced between computers!

If you have used any kind of online backup or sync tool before, Windows Live Mesh will not disappoint you.

Give Windows Live Mesh a try if you have multiple computers. Managing files between your computers has just become easier than ever !

Should You Backup your Smart Phone?

Smartphone-backupThe short answer is yes!

Here’s why: Smartphones are increasingly replacing normal mobile phones. A smartphone is a phone with PC-like capabilities.

What’s great about having a smartphone is that they enable you to perform many tasks that previously would have required a full-sized computer. While a lot of these applications are “cloud based” which means that most or all of the data is stored on central servers (that you don’t need to worry about backing up except if the cloud provider closes down or you discontinue your subscription to a paid service!) there is still quite a lot of important information that may only be stored on your smartphone.

As with all backups, this information builds little by little over time and sadly you may not recognise how important it is until it’s too late. Some of the information that could be at risk on your phone includes:

  • Photos and videos
  • Emails
  • Address books
  • Calendar entries
  • Documents, spreadsheets, presentations
  • To-do lists
  • Notes

So how do you backup your smartphone? Generally you back it up by joining it to a full sized computer periodically.

If your smartphone is an Apple iPhone, iTunes by default will do a backup of your device whenever it’s attached to your computer. It will also keep a number of backups. For these people it’s important to plug in your device regularly to back it up. Soon a new version of the iPhone Operating System is likely to provide the facility to backup directly to the cloud.

Blackberry devices have a similar computer-based backup and restore facility through “Blackberry Desktop Manager”. Again you need to connect your blackberry to your computer to complete the backup so it’s key that you do this regularly.

For other smartphones such as those running Android, you have to work a bit harder! While talked about for some time there is not yet an officially endorsed way to do a full backup of an Android device. This is likely to improve with time, but for now there are some third-party utilities that you can purchase which will backup most of the information on your Android. Just visit the Android Market and search for backup then try a few free/trial apps before you commit to purchasing one which works best for your device and needs.

Viruses and Malware

Why You Get Viruses

Viruses and MalwareThere is an interesting study by a Danish security firm that found the main reason people get viruses is because they don’t update their software.

The main reasons for getting infected are through old versions of Adobe Flash, Adobe PDF Reader, Java and Microsoft Internet Explorer. So if you use these, make sure you keep them up to date!

The conclusion of this study is that as much as 99.8 % of all virus/malware infections are caused by exploit kits and are a direct result of the lack of updating these five specific software packages.

As I always say, prevention is better than a cure, and as annoying as it is, it’s safer to keep your software up to date (and less annoying than getting a virus).

Microsoft recently published a similar study where they found about 90% of virus infections were through unpatched software.

Change Your Passwords

Tip for the day: You should really consider changing your passwords every 3-6 months.

Seems like a no-brainer, but so many people don’t.

A calendar reminder can help if you need prompting.

It is also wise to use a password that is random and alpha-numeric with a mix of upper case and lower case characters.