A human readable guide to cyber security stop getting viruses, secure your credit card, get rid of spyware without paying

free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com www.ebook777.com Finally! A Human-Readable Guide to Cybersecurity free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Congratulations on purchasing this book! Protecting yourself online is critically important, and by reading this book, you are taking an important step to keep your personal information secure The world of digital security is a fascinating one, and today is more important than ever As you read through this book, you will gain an understanding of some of the most fundamental principles of security, how many hacking schemes work, and how you can outsmart them This knowledge is valuable for anyone who uses a computer Whether you use your computer primarily for personal reasons, or you are a businessman wanting to make sure that important company information on your computer remains secure, this book contains invaluable information that can help you maintain privacy It is a concise explanation of security topics written in plain English, so that anyone can understand what it takes to keep computers secure I’ll also guide you on what to do if you find that your computer has already been compromised I’ve tried to keep this book as short and concise as possible so that it will be as easy as possible for you to soak up this information These tips that I will give you come from a number of places - many I have learned from talented programmers, and some from my my own sweat and blood I’ve tried to include a lot of real world examples of hacking schemes to keep this interesting Then I’ll tell you pro-tips that repair shops and security personnel normally sell you for hundreds of dollars I’ll tell you how to get the same things done for free or at comparatively little cost, potentially saving you hundreds I’ll point you to free programs that work nearly as well as commercial ones And for those of you who are willing to invest a little more in computer security, I ’ ll give you my professional opinion on the best commercial software Read this book, and you’ll be saved from the legwork of comparing programs, and then trying to change when you realize you picked the wrong one No more searching Google and sifting through internet to find out what you need - you’ll find it right here By reading and applying the principles in this book could save you from a destructive hacking attempt free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com In addition to learning about how to protect your computer, in this book you’ll actually learn about real principles of security, not just a list of dos and don’ts That will equip you to make smart choices even in areas this book doesn’t cover Sometimes when we first start learning about something new, we don’t really have our bearings and can get lost, or we waste our time on things that do not really matter It’s also easy to miss an important area In the world of digital security, just one omission can leave a computer vulnerable In this book, I’ll give you a holistic view of how security works, so that you can be best prepared to meet the number of attacks that are coming today, and the new ones devised tomorrow Unfortunately, the more the digital world grows, the more incentive hackers have to break into it For those of us us who do honest work, it is frustrating that we have to deal with this problem That said, the consequences of not doing so can be catastrophic By reading and implementing the security measures in this book, you will be providing yourself with a first line of defense that could be the difference between productive computing, and an incredibly destructive security breach As a final note, while this book is designed to be a help to you in implementing digital security, please be aware that it is impossible to cover every attack New ones are invented every day Even if you follow every tip written in this book, there invariably will be other attacks and viruses out there that can cause problems It is impossible to cover all aspects of security in one book That said, this book contains valuable information that will get you on the right track So without further ado, lets get started Sector 1 - Universal Principles of Security A Encryption In 2014, Home Depot announced that there had been a major breach of their security systems in which many, many credit cards were stolen from their systems The Wall Street Journal, 56 million credit card numbers were stolen Criminals had snuck in through a small loophole in their security systems, and quickly began their covert thievery They basically devised a system where they could intercept the credit card numbers of www.ebook777.com people who swiped their cards in the store As data was sent from the credit card readers free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com to where it was stored and processed, the hackers listened in on the wires and intercepted it If Home Depot had been using the technology that I am about to show you, they would have been safe from harm As it is, however, they did not, and massive damage ensued At the end of this section, I’ll show you a bit of a report on their website which discusses how they implemented this critical security technology called encryption Encryption is in many ways the backbone of any secure system Basically, it is a system of scrambling the contents of a message so that nobody can tell what it says unless they have the right password The whole point of it is to enable people to transmit confidential information through an insecure route Here’s an example of how simple encryption might work: If I want to disguise the word “cat” with extremely basic encryption, I could change every letter in the word to the next one in the alphabet - so “c” becomes “d”, “a” becomes “b”, and “t” becomes “u” The resulting “encrypted” form of the word “cat” would be “dbu” I could do the same to a whole sentence and get a result that looks completely different than the original If someone were to look at our sentence without first undoing the encryption, it would have absolutely no meaning Of course, this encryption algorithm wouldn’t be very difficult for anyone to unravel, so far more complex ones have been devised In encryption formulas created today, there are two parts - the formula, called the cipher, and a secret password called the key In the example above, we could change it up so that instead of replacing each letter with the one after it in the alphabet, we would replace each letter with the third letter after it We could replace it with the tenth letter after it (and wrap around back to “a” for letters near the end of the alphabet) In this example, the encryption formula would be quite simple: Replace each letter with the letter following it in the alphabet In our first example, we put the number 1 in the blank, so that each letter would be replaced by the one following it in the alphabet We could, of course, change it to free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com whatever we wish, and thus slightly modify how our message is encrypted In real-life encryption, the key is equivalent to the blank in our encryption formula above By inserting a different number into the formula, we can alter how the message is scrambled In the same way, modern encryption algorithms keep messages secret by using a special key to alter how the message is scrambled, to the point that only the person with the key will be able to unscramble the message Usually these formulas to scramble and unscramble the message are freely available so that anyone can use them protect their information The key, however, is always kept secret As long as that secret code is protected, the message is safe, and it is virtually impossible to unscramble the message In fact, many of the algorithms used today are so secure that today the most powerful supercomputers on earth couldn’t decode the scrambled message, even if given thousands of years The use for such a system is pretty clear - you can send a sensitive message through an insecure route, confident that if anyone were to intercept it they still would not be able to find out the contents of your message This is particularly useful in online transactions, where sensitive data is commonly sent across the internet Let’s say for example, you are buying this book from Amazon with your credit card (and of course that you don’t have it saved) When you enter your credit card number and click the “Buy” button, your computer sends your credit card number through your internet connection to your internet service provider (like AT&T, Verizon, your cable company, etc.) Then your internet service provider sends your credit card number many miles, possibly hundreds of miles to Amazon’s internet service provider, and then to Amazon’s own computers Once they have the card, they have to send the number to your credit card provider (like Visa or MasterCard) and make the charge In one online transaction, your credit card may be sent hundreds, or even thousands of miles Sending your credit card number many miles across internet wires is dangerous As the distance a message is sent increases, the chances of it getting intercepted likely increase as well If your message was not encrypted at all, someone could hook into your internet wires or wifi connection and see everything that you were doing They could see intercept and copy everything you sent to Amazon, including your credit card information If they www.ebook777.com were clever, they would listen in right outside of Amazon’s location, and intercept all the free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com connections Amazon had with their customers and steal every single credit card number! Obviously that would be a huge, huge problem, that would make online shopping utterly infeasible By encrypting the credit card number, however, companies ensure that no one but the intended recipient can read them The way this is implemented in real life is brilliant, but also nearly invisible to the end user Your web browser almost always takes care of it behind the scenes Occasionally something goes wrong in the encryption process, however, and when it does, you need to know what to do I’ll go over that in a minute Right now I’m going to explain in greater detail what your browser is doing under the hood Knowing this will better equip you to understand what can go wrong I will warn you, however, that this will get a bit technical; since its not absolutely essential to keeping secure, its an ok section to skip If you can read it, though, you may find it quite interesting To transfer information securely over the internet, both the sending computer and the receiving computer need to know the same secret key One computer could come up with a randomly generated key, and send it to the other, then for the rest of the time, they could communicate securely using the secret key they both share But how can that key be securely exchanged? One could meet in person with the party in question, or one could even speak over the phone and communicate the secret key Clearly if one were to simply send the key and then the message right after it, the security of the message would be compromised If I send Amazon the key to decrypt my credit card information, and then immediately send the encrypted information right after that, anyone listening in could just intercept the encryption key and then promptly decrypt my sensitive information So how can we securely exchange the secret code? The answer lies in a genius encryption formula that allows secure one-way transmission of data without first sharing a key Unlike a standard encryption formula that uses one secret key to both scramble and unscramble the message, this type of encryption uses two different keys, one to scramble the message, and the other to unscramble it It is specifically designed so that the key used free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com to scramble the message, called the public key, is useless for unscrambling the message Only the private key, as it is called, can decrypt the message and reveal its contents Here’s how this plays out in an example scenario Amazon generates a private and public key pair, and sends their public key to anyone who visits their site, but they keep the private key highly secure When you visit their site, your computer generates another key (unrelated to Amazon’s keys), encrypts this key with Amazon’s public key, and sends it to Amazon Amazon decrypts the key that your computer generated, and for the rest of the time you are connected, your computers use the key your computer generated to keep your messages secure Amazon sends you their public key Your computer generates another completely unrelated key Your computer encrypts the new key with Amazon’s public key and sends it back to Amazon Amazon decrypts it using their private key Now both sides have the same key Your computer and Amazon encrypt all information with the key that your computer generated Amazon’s public and private keys are no longer used Hopefully that makes sense If not, no worries, try reading it again later and it will likely make more sense after your brain has some time to process it The main thing to remember is that encryption is just a way of scrambling a message so that nobody but the person with the password can read it Home Depot posted the following as their solution to the credit card scam: The company has implemented enhanced encryption of payment data in all U.S stores The new security protection locks down payment card data, taking raw payment card information and scrambling it to make it unreadable and virtually useless to hackers Home Depot’s encryption technology, provided by Voltage Security, Inc., has been tested and validated by two independent IT security firms You can read the full article at: www.ebook777.com https://corporate.homedepot.com/MediaCenter/Documents/Press%20Release.pdf free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com From what I can tell, they were using encryption any time a credit card left their internal network Amazingly, the hackers found a way to break into their internal network where credits cards were not encrypted Home Depot had to step up their security measures, encrypting the cards immediately after people swiped them in the store Now that you know how online encryption works, here’s how you can recognize if your connection is encrypted In most browsers today, there is a little lock in the url bar that shows that your site is encrypted Here’s what it looks like in Internet Explorer 11, Chrome, and Firefox: Chrome: Internet Explorer Firefox If you click on the lock, you can see more information about the type of encryption used Here is what it looked like when I visited docs.google.com in Google Chrome free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com The text to the right of the first green lock icon states that the identity of the site has been verified I’ll go over how that works later on For now, I want to focus on how encryption works If you look at the text next to the second green lock, you’ll notice that in this instance the connection is secured with a 256 bit encryption Usually encryption today is either 128 bit or 256 bit All that refers to is the length of the secret key used to encrypt your connection A longer 256 bit key is more secure than a shorter 128 bit key The longer the key, the more complex the encryption is, and the more difficult it is to undo As of today both are sufficiently long to be considered secure The next item in the security information box is the name of the protocol that governs how the connection is initiated and encrypted It says “The connection uses TLS 1.2.” Here, the name of the protocol used is TLS 1.2 Right now TLS 1.2 is widely believed to be the most secure mainstream protocol for transmitting information in a web browser TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.0 are older versions that are less secure Another, older method of encryption is SSL 3.0 Both TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 have widely known vulnerabilities that make them www.ebook777.com easier to break into If you are using a site with very important information, like a banking free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com or investing site, you should think twice before you enter your information if the connection is not using TLS 1.2, or at least 1.1 It may just be that they have not updated their software, but for financial institutions, this is unlikely If you see a bank website with a TLS 1.0 connection, your browser may be out of date If you have an up-to-date browser, it is possible that there is a third party hacker interfering with the connection, causing the connection to be governed by a less secure protocol The next item in the list states the actual encryption algorithm used to secure messages transmitted The TLS protocol simply governs how the connection is formed, not what specific algorithm is used to encrypt messages Computers today support a number of different encryption algorithms (called ciphers), and any of a number of them can be used The TLS protocol determines how your browser and the site you are accessing will decide on a cipher Not all computers have the same ciphers, and they must find one that both have in common In this case, the cipher used is CHACHA20_POLY1305, which is considered a secure encryption algorithm Here are the other ciphers that are commonly considered secure when used with either TLS 1.1 or 1.2 -AES ciphers -Camelia ciphers -Seed ciphers That covers the basics of secure connections to a website Generally speaking, connections with TLS 1.2 will be considered the most secure If the site does not use TLS 1.2, your browser will still connect as usual and tell you that you have a secure connection Now that you know more about encryption, however, you have the tools to determine if a site is using the latest, most secure protocol, or an older less secure one This is a picture of the security profile for a stock trading company I found when writing this book Note that it uses TLS 1.0, a protocol with known security holes (Disclaimer TradeStation may have updated their site since the writing of this book Please check there to see the status) free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com The way they do it is pretty sneaky A big advertising network like Google has ads on millions of pages Every time one of their ads loads onto a web page you visit, it can make and read cookies The first time you visit a site with their ads, they can set a cookie on your computer that identifies you, and makes note of the site you are at When you visit another site with their ads, your computer will send that cookie back to the advertising network Once there, the advertising network figures out what niche the first website you visited was, and displays similar ads It also makes note of what website you are currently visiting, and uses that to display ads in the future As you browse the internet, any time you come to a site with their advertisements installed, they update the cookie to include this site as well Over time, they can gain a pretty good feel for what you like and don’t like on the internet With that information, they can send you ads that you are more likely to be interested in and click on It’s a clever scheme that online marketing companies use to send you targeted ads Some people hate it, but then again, some people think it is nicer to have ads that are relevant If you are a guy, you probably would rather see ads about tech gadgets than about princess costumes, so in that way it is actually helpful Regardless, it is a tracking mechanism that is problematic for your privacy The easiest way to prevent cookies from tracking you is to install a privacy extension in your browser Unfortunately , Internet Explorer has very few extensions that work, and I have not found a good extension for blocking cookies If you use Firefox (generally considered the best mainstream browser for privacy), you can use the popular extension called Ghostery, which blocks most tracking cookies You can find it at : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/?src=cb-dl-mostpopular If you are a Chrome user, there is an extension called Disconnect that does something similar https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disconnect/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo? free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com hl=en If for some reason either of these urls change, just search the internet for the name of the extension and the word “cookies”, and you should be able to find it without a problem I should also let you know that sometimes these cookie blocking extensions are a little too aggressive, and can block legitimate cookies, or other parts of a site that are needed for it to function correctly If you notice that a website looks strange or isn’t working right, try disabling the privacy extension for that site Don’t forget this, because if you do, you could have inexplicable problems and not know why There is another type of cookie that is important to cover here, and it is stored by Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player has a separate way for programmers to store information on your computer For example, if someone is playing a flash game, they may want to save their level progress Adobe Flash Player saves that information to your computer in a similar manner to how cookies are saved, but the major difference is that they are managed by Adobe Flash Player Just like regular cookies, they are embedded in ads on sites that you may visit Often you can distinguish a Flash-based ad by the fact that it has animations in it If you right click on the ad and it is running on Adobe Flash Player, you should see something to that effect in the context menu To avoid these Flash cookies, you have a few options One thing you can do is turn off Adobe Flash Player altogether How to do so depends on what browser you are using Adobe Flash Player is an plugin, so that means for most browsers you should look in the plugins list in your browser and you should be able to turn it off there In Chrome, type exactly in your url bar chrome://plugins Scroll down till you find Adobe Flash, and you can disable it In Internet Explorer, click the gear icon in the upper right of the browser and then click “Manage add-ons” From there you can disable it Disabling Adobe Flash player today is not a bad idea Flash used to be pretty important, but since Apple quit supporting it with the introduction of the IPhone, its significance has dropped drastically Now most major sites don’t use it much www.ebook777.com If you don’t want to completely disable Flash, the privacy extensions I mentioned above free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com should help block many of intrusive Flash ads from ever loading You can also simply tell Flash not to save any content to your computer To do this, just right click on any flash content next time you see it, and click settings From there, you’ll see a small icon with a folder Click that, and you can move the slider to 0 to prevent any Flash tracking cookies Another effective way to block tracking cookies is to block ads altogether If ads can’t load, then they can’t load cookies Additionally, it’s also just nice to be able to browse the internet without advertisements, which are often annoying, and many times, inappropriate Today advertisements can be so offensive that you feel violated just by seeing them Fortunately, a solution to get rid of these ads exists, called Adblock Plus It is a browser extension that works in the most popular browsers today, including Internet Explorer and Safari If you go to their website, https://adblockplus.org/, they will automatically detect what browser you are using and show you a big button saying “install now” customized for your browser From there it’s pretty simple to install Once you start using Adblock plus, you’ll never be able to go back to the old ad-ridden internet that you saw before free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Sector 4: Help, I’ve Been Hacked! A How To Tell If Your Computer Has Been Compromised Knowing what to do if you’ve been hacked is clearly very important But how do you know if you have been hacked? Sometimes its relatively easy - if a message appears telling you that all your files have been encrypted and you must pay to get them back, your computer has clearly been compromised At other times it may not be so apparent In this section, I’ll cover some of the telltale signs that your computer may have malware Then in the next section I’ll go over how to get rid of it Your computer is running abnormally slow Sometimes this is just because your computer doesn’t have enough power to handle everything you are throwing at it At other times, this is because a piece of malware is running in the background on your computer If your computer is slow starting up, it may be because a piece of malware is being started as well Once it’s booted, if it is still running slow, it may because the software is still running Hackers often need a lot of computer processing power to do their work Instead of buying more computers, they may just send out viruses that hijack other people’s computers If they have tens of thousands of computers they can control through malware, they can use them for any number of things They can use them to send out billions of pieces of spam in short amounts of time They can use them to propagate viruses Some have even used them to mine Bitcoins, an increasingly popular digital currency By using the power of thousands, or even millions of computers, hackers have presumably made a lot of money doing it www.ebook777.com There are countless things that your computer could be used for if it were connected to a free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com criminal ring via malware The bottom line is that when your computer is used for those things, it slows down a lot Standard spyware can also eat away at your system’s performance just logging your activity While recording every keystroke isn’t likely to take up too much processing power, taking screenshots and transferring them across the internet might slow your computer down Furthermore, malware may run seemingly simple tasks, like recording your keystrokes, in inordinately complex ways to avoid detection by antivirus software If your computer is running very slowly, it is likely that you have some malware Standard Microsoft or Apple Security Functions Don’t Work Both Macs and PCs have a number of built in security abilities to help fight malware In order to stay on computers, malware will often try to disable Microsoft and Apple security features One of the most important of these features is software updates When Apple or Microsoft finds a security hole in their operating system, they usually will issue an update to fix the vulnerability Oftentimes the system update also contains a malware removal tool that will automatically destroy any malware that may have entered the security hole Obviously, the creators of malware don’t like the idea of getting their malware removed, so sometimes they will try to prevent your computer from downloading updates If your system update doesn’t work, it is likely that you have a virus Another built in security function that Windows has is system restore Windows usually takes a snapshot of important system files right before you install any programs If the program was malware, or just dysfunctional software that messed up your computer somehow, you can often use system restore to bring your computer’s system files back to how they were before the installation of the program Clearly the creators of malware don’t want that, so they may try to disable system restore through with their program If your system restore function isn’t working, you may have been hacked Ads pop up on your system at random times free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Creators of malware often make a profit by selling ads I told you about one earlier, the Tuvaro virus, which sets your browser’s homepage to Tuvaro.com, an internet search site containing ads This is a relatively mild form of adware Some malware installs far more annoying adverts They can create pop up windows on your computer that contain ads, even when you are not browsing the internet Sometimes they will redirect not only your homepage, but also every page you try to visit on the internet For example, when you try to visit Bing, they may redirect you to a page containing an ad for hair products These ads may not appear every time you use your browser They may make them appear only sometimes so that you can still use your computer - and thus keep seeing their ads on occasion But they will often appear at annoying times, like when you type a search into the search bar in your browser If they hack your computer, they can show you ads whenever they want, and each time you click on one of them, they get paid If you see ads popping up, it is likely that you have some form of malware Also, don’t click on any ads you may see like that! If you do, you’re only further supporting malware Frequent program or system crashes If programs freeze or quit unexpectedly, and with unusual frequency, you could have some malware on your computer Of course, programs still freeze on malware-free machines, so I’m talking about a lot of crashes that just don’t stop If Windows, or your Mac operating system freezes, won’t start up right, or has strange errors and then stops working, you may have a virus Here is why malware can cause your programs to freeze Hackers often try to modify programs on your computer, but sometimes their modifications don’t work, and instead just break the program they are trying to modify For example, they may try to hack Internet Explorer to show you ads, or to spy on your browsing history If your version of Internet Explorer is even slightly different than the one they used when designing their virus, the virus may not work as they intend Instead, their modification may just break important files that the program uses, causing Internet Explorer to crash If you notice that your programs are frequently crashing, quitting unexpectedly, or “encountering unexpected errors”, you may have some malware on your machine www.ebook777.com Nothing at all free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com The most effective malware are the ones that are the most difficult to detect Being difficult to detect is a major goal for a lot of malware The longer malware can avoid detection, the more useful it is for its owners If it’s spyware, that means it can capture more of your passwords If it’s part of a botnet, that means the hackers can use it to do their work for longer The only feasible way to detect and remove these is through the use of anti-malware or antivirus software You can get good free antivirus software to scan and remove threats to your computer, as well as real time malware protection that scans files to prevent anything from destroying your computer I’ll go over these solutions soon B Help for the Hacked - How To Get Malware Off Your Computer If you think that you may have a virus, you need to use an anti-malware or antivirus solution to get rid of it Unless you are the ultimate computer nerd, you are probably not going to know what to do And even if you are, it’s almost always easier and more effective to install a malware removal tool than it is to dig around through system files to remove it manually If the antivirus tool doesn’t work, try system restore And if that doesn’t work, you may need to reinstall the operating system altogether First I’ll cover anti-malware software, then I’ll go over the other two solutions First, here’s a bit about how anti-virus software works To detect viruses on your computer, the people who create these programs may have whole teams of people dedicated to finding the latest viruses When they find a new virus, they figure out its key characteristics and send the “malware definition” to the antivirus program you have on your computer Then when they scan your computer, they use the malware definition check to see if anything similar to that malware is in your computer If they find traces of the malware, then they can quarantine it so that it can’t cause any more problems Because new malware is constantly invented, anti-malware software must be kept constantly up to date Usually, this updating takes place in the background, but some versions may require you to manually update free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com Now, I’m going to go over a few anti-malware solutions, and give you my recommendations For a more in-depth report, please follow the link to get your free report at the beginning of this book If all you want to do is scan your computer to see if you have a virus and get rid of it, the best tool I have found for that is MalwareBytes anti-malware They offer a fully functional, free malware scan and removal tool that you can use as much as you like It has excellent malware detection abilities, and can be used to remove most malware Like I said, it is free, so for those of you who have a virus or malware and don’t want to pay, this is a great tool for you If you want to use another free antivirus tool, I would caution you to be careful Many free anti-malware tools only offer antivirus scanning, but require you to pay in order to actually remove the viruses That is clearly not what you want Other programs you may find on the internet to remove malware are just more malware themselves They claim to be excellent anti-malware tools, but really are just Trojans Then they quickly install malware and further destroy your machine There are other legitimate free antivirus tools out there Bitdefender, Avira antivirus, and AVG are just a few other ones One major problem with most antivirus software, whether paid or free, is that it often slows down your computer It constantly digs through files to see if it can find viruses, and constantly scans any new files put on your computer All this scanning comes at a cost - your computer will usually run more slowly, and will lag more For most of us, we are not willing to risk getting any malware on our machines, and we accept that performance decrease in exchange for protection from malware If you don’t use the internet much, or are very careful when doing so, you may not think the performance cost is worth it Also, if you have an older machine, running modern antivirus software may render your computer nearly unusable In either case, if you don’t want to run antivirus software continually for performance reasons, a tool like Malwarebytes free is exactly what you need It doesn’t monitor any files or download updates in real time, saving your computer from processing overhead Whenever you want to scan your computer, it downloads the latest updates, runs a scan, and effectively quarantines any malware it may www.ebook777.com find That way it only runs when you want it to, and keeps unexpected performance free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com decreases due to antivirus software out of the way If you run it once a week, or less if you don’t access the internet much, you’ll have a decent anti-malware strategy The free edition of Malwarebytes is a superb tool for finding malware on your machine If you want maximum protection, however, you need real-time protection, something that automatically scans new files on your computer before they can cause any damage It’s great if you can catch malware with a quick scan, but you really don’t want it to ever take over your computer in the first place If spyware gets on your computer for just long enough to watch you enter your credit card information into the computer, you are in for some trouble, even if you remove it the next day Real time protection can help prevent something like that from ever happening Although there is a performance cost to realtime protection, the benefits it offers are excellent As far as software goes, most anti-malware software offers continuous protection for your machine Malwarebytes offers a great, cost efficient premium edition of their product for just $24.99 that does just that As I said before, it offers real time, advanced malware detection that will help protect your computer against threats Another great antivirus program, Webroot, is a leader in the field of antivirus software It offers both excellent malware detection and good speed for just a little more, $29.99 As I said earlier, a major problem with antivirus software is computer slowdown One of Webroot’s key selling points is faster speed If you have a blazingly fast computer, this may not be too important, but if speed is an issue, you may notice a difference You can find webroot here: Webroot Inc If you don’t want to pay anything for real time malware detection, you can get some good free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com real-time anti-malware software without spending a penny Bitdefender is one of the most well-liked free antivirus programs because it does a good job detecting malware, and is easy to install The creators of Bitdefender attempt to circumvent the performance problems caused by many security programs by only scanning your system when it is idle In my experience this only seemed somewhat effective Nevertheless, this is an important feature that Bitdefender has, is probably one of the reasons it is so well liked Avira is another popular program that offers real time protection With the “made in Germany” line they tout, it would seem like a tantalizing product Indeed, they offer extremely comprehensive protection, scanning virtually every file on your computer upon first installation Tests I have seen indicate that it has excellent malware detection rates Furthermore, it has an extension for your web browser that is supposed to help identify malicious sites with malware or phishing For the protection obsessed, Avira is not a bad idea to use The downside to all that protection, in my experience, is that Avira runs a little slow on my computer If you have a fast computer, then it is probably a good choice because of its excellent malware detection abilities Otherwise, you may want to look into alternatives There are a number of other programs out there that you can buy These are just a few of the ones you’ll find out there, and what, in my opinion, are among the best Run these programs, as a first line of defense to keep bad programs out If you already have it, these can often effectively remove it C System Restore System restore is a utility on Windows computers that backs up important system files when significant changes are made to the computer, such as installing a program If you mistakenly installed a Trojan on your computer, and anti-malware software can’t seem to get it off, you may want to try a system restore The system restore functionality is special because it only restores your system and program files to how they were in the past, but leaves most of your important documents alone www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com To run a system restore on Windows 8, search for “Recovery” from the start menu Click “Recovery”, and then when the control panel item opens up, you’ll see “Open System Restore” Click on that, and you’ll see a list of restore points Choose one of them, and follow the wizard to restore your computer to an earlier point in time If you have an earlier version of Windows, you can search for “System Restore”, or just go to the control panel, and search there If you have a Mac, there isn’t a feature exactly like system restore, but if you have been using Time Machine, you can easily restore your computer to a previous state To do so, hold down command and the “r” key at the same time while your Mac is turning on Keep holding them until the Apple logo appears Once your computer starts up, you’ll see a window that gives you the option to restore your computer from a time-machine backup If you have a Windows computer, System Restore is a great way to get rid of some nasty malware that you have In many cases, it takes care of the problem altogether Sometimes, however, neither antivirus software, nor system Restore works If that happens, you may need to completely reinstall your operating system D Reinstalling Windows or Mac OS X - The Ultimate Clean Reinstalling your operating system means destroying your installation of Windows or OS X on your computer and starting all over again This is not something you want to do unless you have a pretty serious problem with your computer, such as a very resistant piece of malware Doing so, however, is often an effective solution Before reinstalling your operating system, you’ll need to backup all your important files It doesn’t really matter how you do this; just do it some way that’s easy for you Probably the easiest way would be to hook up an external hard drive and copy the contents of your My Documents, Desktop, Videos, Pictures, and whatever other important files you need to free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com your external hard drive If you’ve already taken a backup of your computer, then you should already have these files on your external hard drive If you have Windows 8, you have two ways of doing a system reinstall - a full system reset that completely wipes out everything on your computer, and a “refresh” that saves some of the documents on your computer They both reset Windows completely so they should both generally accomplish the same thing To do a system reset or refresh, swipe in from the left of your touchpad, click settings, then click “change PC settings” at the bottom of the sidebar A new screen will appear, and in the menu on the left, the bottom choice, “Update and Recovery” is what you are looking for Now click “Recovery” to the left, and you’ll see the options you have to reset your computer Do be warned, a “refresh” sounds like it won’t delete much on your computer While it may save some of your files, it will remove any programs you have installed on your computer, unless you installed them through the Windows App Store (and technically it removes those, too - it just reinstalls them afterwards) You must backup everything you want to keep, otherwise you may very well lose it When you backup and restore your files, you want to make sure you avoid any sketchy files that may have been the source of the malware in the first place It’s a good idea to back them all up, but you should only restore files that you really need once the reinstallation process is complete Once you run a system refresh or a system reset, you’ll have a clean copy of your computer, which hopefully won’t have the malware running in it anymore Do be careful this time! If you did a refresh and see the same files you downloaded, don’t run them! There is no sense in going through all that trouble just to get the malware on your computer again Try to think about where you could have gotten that malware so you can avoid accidentally reinstalling it For earlier versions of Windows, reinstallation, if you have the Windows CD is not difficult Just insert the CD into the computer while the computer is on, then restart it A www.ebook777.com screen should automatically come up asking you if you want to reinstall Windows You’ll free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com need to follow the instructions on screen and you should be able to reinstall your programs Once again, this will destroy all your files (including the malware you are trying to get rid of), so you need to have a backup of your system before doing so If you don’t have a Windows CD, you’ll need to get in touch with technical support from where you bought your computer Some manufacturers put a backup copy of Windows on your computer and may have specific instructions on how to access it Once you reinstall Windows, you will need to reinstall all the programs you had before as well In addition, you will need to copy the files you backed up onto your new computer It can take some time to get everything you need back on your new computer, so be patient If the time it takes gets frustrating, let it be an incentive for you to keep your computer more secure in the future If you have a Mac, reinstalling your OS is simple Restart your Mac, and hold down Command + R until you see the Apple logo When your computer starts, you’ll see the option to reinstall OS X Reinstalling OS X is similar to doing a refresh on a Windows 8 computer It attempts to reinstall your operating system without removing your personal files It’s important to recognize that you must be connected to the internet before you start the process If you want to completely reset your Mac’s hard drive and delete everything on it, follow the instructions contained at this link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201376 at the Apple website Whether you have a Mac or Windows computer, reinstalling your operating system will take some time, maybe an hour, or even more You may feel like something has broken, but don’t worry, it is normal for an operating system reinstall to take a long time Both Windows and Mac OS X are extensive, and reinstalling them involves writing a huge amount of information to your hard disk If you have an SSD, then the process will be significantly faster, but will still take some time Be patient, it will finish, and your free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com computer will hopefully be free from malware at the end As an added benefit, a full operating system reinstall usually cleans out unneeded gunk in your system, and can help it perform significantly better afterwards www.ebook777.com free ebooks ==> www.ebook777.com All Sectors Completed All right, you made it! You finished a detailed intro to digital security, and now you know how to protect yourself You’ve learned about many aspects of cybersecurity so that you can protect yourself in this digital age Now you know about different types of Malware, and how to get rid of it You’ve learned about major ways that malware gets into computers, and what awful things can happen when it does get in I’ve told you about some of the most dangerous phishing schemes out there, and how you can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s a fake If you put these things into practice, you’ll be well on your way to securing yourself from digital threats Lastly, on a personal note - if you appreciated this book on digital security, I’d be grateful if you would give it a positive review in the Amazon book store ... http://www.cobiansoft.com/cobianbackup.htm Another alternative to Cobian backup is CrashPlan’s free backup plan Unlike Cobian backup, CrashPlan is a commercially supported piece of software, and so it has a nicer... Yes, it may be encrypted with your login password, but still, for something as important as a bank account, its really not a good idea There are a number of more advanced password management tools out there LastPass is one of the most popular When you create an account on a new website, it will generate a. .. called, is a program that works at set intervals to backup all your data to a connected hard drive It creates an incremental backup of your hard drive, which allows to recreate a virtual snapshot of your computer at each time it has run a backup This comes in handy