How About a Free Anti Virus Program - 3 Reasons Why You May Be at Risk

Should I use a free antivirus program or a paid version? In todays world on the internet, we are always looking for a product or service that is free. However, when it comes to a virus protection, free is not always free.

Think about it for a minute. Why would anyone sit down on the computer and spend hours and hours of time to develop and maintain a software program and do it for free. There has got to be someone wanting to make money off of you some how or they could not continue with their activities.

In addition, many of the so called free programs do not have technical support. How would they be able to support technical help if they could not pay them. When you have a problem, you are going to want someone to help you.

Spyware – Many software programs that are free, have some type of spyware attached. If the maker or developer of the program is not charging you, then how are they going to make money. Spyware is attached to the program and your system may be tracked for advertisement purposes.

In some cases your system may be scanned for e-mail address or other information that you may not want to give out. Please be very careful with any free program you install on your computer.

Better yet, make sure you have a firewall, anti virus program and anti spyware program installed on your computer for all of your internet security protection.

Top 5 Virus Protection Software Programs

Norton Anti Virus
Trend Micro PC-cillin Anti Virus
BitDefender Anti Virus
Shield Pro 2007
Mcafee AntiVirus

If you would like to get more information on the Top 5 Virus Protection programs, you can go to http://www.filterguide.com/antivirus.ratings.htm

You can find the top rated Internet Security software programs along with discounts that range from 10% to 25% Off at Internet Security Software

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How Do I Know If My PC Is Infected With Spyware or Adware

Many people that are new to the Internet world are nervous about the potential of viruses, Spyware or Adware that can harm their computer, affect performance or make their very private information public to others.

Spyware programs can do a number of damaging things to your personal computer. Spyware infects your pc and hides in the background and can do many nasty things to the performance of your system. It can also do harmful things to you such as send out your personal information, your every keystroke and photo that resides on your hard drive, watch your surfing habits and shopping habits and annoy you with annoying pop-ups filled with advertisements and even pornography.

If you are experiencing any unusual changes in your computer's performance or have any unusual new pop-ups, changes to your toolbars or new icons on your desktop, you should run a system scan to find out if you have Spyware. Products exist on the market to help you combat this problem. Be sure to install software that you know is credible. Downloading freeware can often result in further Spyware existing on your computer. Spyware, Adware and Malware companies frequently fool users into sending pop-ups telling them that there's a problem with their computer and this in fact is further spyware. These errors can open your system up to future further problems by fooling people into thinking they're downloading fixes when really further spyware is being downloaded.

Watch your system's performance and at the sign of any unusual activity, realize that you are probably infected. Do something as soon as possible to protect your privacy. These programs don't discriminate and can launch themselves when you or your family members sit in front of the computer. Pornographic pop-ups can turn up whether it's an adult or a child using the computer. Protect your pc.

Antivirus alone isn't enough to combat this problem. Spyware sneaks into your system via executable files that you don't need to do anything to launch. They can sneak in as attachments that you download or by many other means. They're harmful and annoying but you can protect your computer and your privacy with the right software. This software needs to have an auto update for spyware definitions as new spyware definitions are being added daily. So a spyware removal program is a great compliment to your existing anti-virus software.

Total Innovations, Inc. specializes in developing award winning software programs designed to solve computer users needs. The spyware removal software, http://www.emailspy.com & http://www.folderhider.com are a few of the most recent. See full details at: http://www.spyblaster.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Buzz_Scott

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Sony and NEC join forces

With the prices of DVD-burners dropping almost continuously it’s becoming increasingly difficult for manufacturers to realise a profit on their sales. This has forced various large manufacturers of optical drives to combine their resources and to work together. For example: Samsung and Toshiba have joint ownership of a production plant for optical drives, LG and Hitachi work together and Lite-on is a production partner to a multitude of other companies. The latest joint venture is that of Sony and NEC. Both Sony and NEC can profit from this cooperation as well as lower their production costs substantially. Sony is co-owner of various DVD-drive patents and therefore, unlike other manufacturers, does not have to pay some of the licensing fees associated with the production of DVD-burners and this can benefit NEC greatly. NEC on the other hand develops its own DVD-burner chipsets and is very cost effective in this area thus benefiting Sony. The first product to emerge from the cooperation of Sony and NEC is the Sony AW-G170A, an 18x speed DVD-burner. We put the drive through our extensive testing routine and in the following review will give you an in-depth view of its capabilities.

Specification wise the Sony AW-G170 does not disappoint. Like the latest Samsung and Plextor drives the Sony AW-G170 is capable of burning both DVD+R and DVD-R discs at 18x speed, it can also burn double-layer DVD+R and DVD-R discs at 8x speed, DVD+RW at 8x speed, DVD-RW at 6x speed and DVD-RAM at 12x speed. The drive has a 2MB buffer and makes use of a standard Atapi IDE interface. Inside the drive we find the NEC MC-10041 chipset and this is something we haven’t seen in any other drive as of yet. Neither Lightscribe or Labelfalsh are supported by the AW-G170 but these are features that will hardly be missed by most users. Being able to change the bitsetting or booktype to allow greater compatibility with various DVD players is only available with DVD+R DL discs. Based on the specifications on offer we can safely say that the AW-G170 is superior to any existing drives currently on offer by both Sony and NEC including Sony’s DRU-820A and NEC’s ND-4571.

Sony is targeting system integrators and the retail market with its new product and is therefore selling the drive solely as an OEM-product. The drive itself is available in four colors: Black, Pearl White, White and silver.

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AVG Free for Linux Virus Protection

Although Linux systems are among the most resistant to virus attacks, Grisoft has introduced yesterday a new free ( for home use ) version of its software AVG Anti-Virus specifically for the Linux desktop.

Peter Lipa, President of Grisoft said:

With its growing popularity, it is only a matter of time before the Linux operating system becomes more widely targeted by virus and malware writers

Some AVG Free for Linux benefits include:

- Rapid virus database updates for the lifetime of the product
- Small update files that do not drain system resources
- Automatic update functionality
- AVG On-Demand Scanner, which allows users to perform scheduled and
manual tests
- AVG's advanced virus detection methods (heuristic analysis, generic
detection, scanning) designed to provide maximum virus protection

Download page: http://www.grisoft.com/doc/Programs/lng/us/tpl/tpl01

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Secure Java apps on Linux using MD5 crypt

You know probably the good quality of IBM's articles. 2 days ago, IBM has published a new article in the "developerWorks" corner written by Vladimir Silva. In this article, "Secure Java apps on Linux using MD5 crypt", he described the GNU extensions to the crypt() system call and provided an implementation of MD5 crypt for use with Java applications.

First, he told about some weakness of the old crypt function and then presented the MD5 crypt GNU-extension followed by the MD5 crypt algorithm and a bash script for testing against a local Linux registry (/etc/shadow).

There is a link at the end of the article to the Java implementation of the MD5 crypt.

It is a good article. I really recommend it for your free time.

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Linux kernel 2.6.15.1 to fix multiple vulnerabilities

Linux kernel version 2.6.15.1 is released 2 days ago after the identification of multiple vulnerabilities in the version 2.6.15 and prior which could be exploited by remote or local attackers to cause a denial of service.

[root@mylinux ~]# uname -a
Linux mylinux.home 2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 #1 ... GNU/Linux

Oooops! >:)

The first issue is due to an infinite loop in the "netlink_rcv_skb" [af_netlink.c] function when handling a specially crafted "nlmsg_len" value, which could be exploited by local attackers to cause a denial of service.

The second flaw is due to an error in the PPTP NAT helper that does not properly calculate the offset when handling an inbound "PPTP_IN_CALL_REQUEST" packet, which could be exploited by attackers to crash a vulnerable system.

The third vulnerability is due to an error in the PPTP NAT helper that does not properly calculate the offset based on the difference between two pointers to the header, which could be exploited by attackers to cause a kernel crash.

It is recommended to update to the version 2.6.15.1

Links:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ChangeLog-2.6.15.1
http://www.kernel.org
http://www.frsirt.com/english/advisories/2006/0220

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Will linux kernel move to GPL 3?

The Linux kernel mailing list started discussing about adopting the GPL3. Leading Linux developers are divided on whether Linux kernel should use the GNU General Public License version 3 or not. The discussion is started although the GPL3 is only a draft. The final version should be released in 2007.

Here are the main thoughts from some developers:

Jeff V. Merkey: The patent retaliation clause is exactly what has been missing. The inclusion of custom binaries was a little vague, but the net of it is that the end user can combine the separate parts, and have the freedom to do so given the GPL3 terms. Any concensus on whether Linux will move to GPL3? I support adoption

Stephen Hemminger: No consensus exists, and it would require agreement from all the copyright holders.

Patrick McLean: I don't think the kernel is going to move to v3, it's licensed specifically as v2, this is from the top of COPYING. Also, given that several of the copyright holders in the kernel are dead, I don't think we will be able to obtain permission.

Alan Cox: It may well move to v3, or bits of it may well do but it is rather early to speculate.
About obtain permission from copyright holders: It isn't clear that this will be a problem. Very few people specifically put their code v2 only, and Linus edit of the top copying file was not done with permission of other copyright holders anyway so really only affects his code if it is valid at all. What finally happens is going to depend almost entirely on whether the GPL v3 is a sane license or not and on consensus, and it is *way* too early to figure that out.

Jeff V. Merkey: GPL2 is fine if the kernel stays that way for my projects. moving forward, the patent retaliation clause is a great idea.

Alexander Shishckin: GPLv3 tends to get on top of the most braindead things ever known to software development. It is, in fact, a one-too-many example of how a person who cannot be seriously considered to be a computer programmer tries to have his one-too-many revenge on companies which employ real software developers and produce real world software. Someone should probably put an end to these miserable efforts.

Chase Venters: Why does everyone assume that Stallman is out to 'get revenge' on companies? Is his desire for freedom so hard to grasp and believe that all you can do is spin it into silly conspiracies?
Why do people not recognize that his GNU project has built significant things? Do you not realize that Linux is licensed GPLv2, which is also Stallman's license?
I'm not going to trumpet around in 'patriotic' support of Stallman for too long, but if you're going to go on a Stallman/GPL bashing tirade, try having some real reasons instead of moaning like a rock in the wind.
As for the implicit allegation that he's wrong for not accepting the "company's" way of doing thing, last I checked, most of this 'free software' stuff was started and written by people as a hobby, for themselves and their users -- not for companies. It just happens that Stallman's license allows business and industry to harmonize.

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Dynamic VirtualHost using mod_vhost_alias

I was looking into a solution for a customer and mod_vhost_alias came in handy.

Lets say you want to host blogs for several people and you want to host them on the following subdomain format: blogname.crazyblogs.com. Instead of having a separate virtual host for each one, you can do something like this:


UseCanonicalName Off
VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/%0/htdocs
ServerName *.crazyblogs.com


Now, if you go to http://blog1.crazyblogs.com, it will look for a index file inside /var/www/blog1.crazyblogs.com/htdocs.

You can find further information on:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/vhosts/mass.html#simple

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_vhost_alias.html

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“Bring back deleted files with lsof”

I haven’t had time to post for over a month, but I’m back. The other day I found this article (http://www.linux.com/articles/58142) talking about bringing back files using lsof. At first it did not make a lot of sense since unless you have the file open, this will not work. How likely are you to have the files you just deleted by mistake still open?

Well, not very likely. BUT…if you own a shared hosting company, (or if you are the system administrator of one), you know that often someone will have poor code along with allow_url_fopen turned on, and in no time you will have hackers injecting and running scripts on your server.

Usually you are able to find the running process and kill it. But if you look at the file descriptors you may find the file that got deleted after it was ran and still in memory.

I will have a similar example to the one in the article:

Create a file, open it, Ctrl + Z, then delete the file

[root@tiger proctest]# echo “Hello Linuxzone” >crazyfile
[root@tiger proctest]# less crazyfile
Hello Linuxzone

[1]+ Stopped less crazyfile

[root@tiger proctest]# rm crazyfile
rm: remove regular file `crazyfile’? y

Run lsof and grep for the filename or command ran. Alternatively you can find the PID from the running process on compromised box.

[root@tiger proctest]# lsof crazyfile
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
less 4771 root 4r REG 3,5 16 2099178 crazyfile (deleted)

[root@tiger proctest]# lsof|grep less

less 4771 root cwd DIR 3,5 4096 2099177 /home/jc/proctest
less 4771 root rtd DIR 3,5 4096 2 /
less 4771 root txt REG 3,5 101788 8280017 /usr/bin/less
less 4771 root mem REG 3,5 112168 376984 /lib/ld-2.3.4.so
less 4771 root mem REG 3,5 1529136 376987 /lib/tls/libc-2.3.4.so
less 4771 root mem REG 3,5 1175697 8278659 /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.5.4
less 4771 root 0u CHR 136,0 2 /dev/pts/0
less 4771 root 1u CHR 136,0 2 /dev/pts/0
less 4771 root 2u CHR 136,0 2 /dev/pts/0
less 4771 root 3r CHR 5,0 1857 /dev/tty
less 4771 root 4r REG 3,5 16 2099178 /home/jc/proctest/crazyfile (deleted)
Go to /proc/PID and check file descriptors inside the fd directory. You can also check the command ran by cat cmdline:

[root@tiger proctest]# cd /proc/4771
[root@tiger 4771]# ll
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 May 5 23:08 attr
-r——– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 auxv
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 cmdline
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 cwd -> /home/jc/proctest
-r——– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 environ
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 exe -> /usr/bin/less
dr-x—— 2 root root 0 May 5 23:08 fd
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 loginuid
-r——– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 maps
-rw——- 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 mem
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 mounts
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 root -> /
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 stat
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 statm
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 status
dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 May 5 23:08 task
-r–r–r– 1 root root 0 May 5 23:08 wchan

[root@tiger 4771]# cat cmdline
lesscrazyfile

[root@tiger 4771]# cd fd
[root@tiger fd]# ll
total 5
lrwx—— 1 root root 64 May 5 23:08 0 -> /dev/pts/0
lrwx—— 1 root root 64 May 5 23:08 1 -> /dev/pts/0
lrwx—— 1 root root 64 May 5 23:08 2 -> /dev/pts/0
lr-x—— 1 root root 64 May 5 23:08 3 -> /dev/tty
lr-x—— 1 root root 64 May 5 23:08 4 -> /home/jc/proctest/crazyfile (deleted)
[root@tiger fd]# cat 4
Hello Linuxzone
[root@tiger fd]# cp 4 /tmp/crazyfile.restored
[root@tiger fd]# cat /tmp/crazyfile.restored
Hello Linuxzone

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