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Secure Computing Practices

by Andy Thompson on May 14, 2013

Synopsis: This blog article focuses on the privacy and personal security functionality of PC Clean Maestro– the removal of personal and private files. There are numerous examples of cybercrime and online hacking which exemplify damages that can be lost in terms of financial wealth, private data, and personal information that can be used against your will. In this article we will offer some examples of how you can prevent falling into malicious traps. For more detail of cybercrime examples refer to our newsletter. While encryption and firewall techniques are available, experts agree that there are always vulnerable points of entry. We emphasize eliminating the risk by removal of data where possible.

Introducing – PC Clean Maestro:

The CompuClever application PC Clean Maestro has more than one major function. It is used to remove junk files, to uninstall programs, and for removal of data for purposes of security and retaining PC privacy. Removing private data that is sensitive or can be stolen is done in the same manner as removing junk files with minor differences. We will outline the procedure here in step-by-step fashion. Before we begin, let’s start with a best practice tip.

Best Practices: 1. BackUp Data

As we stated in our previous article… backup your data! This article deals with removal – permanent removal – of sensitive and private items. As can be seen in the list provided below, these are items that are automatically created by ongoing functions of your PC including passwords, personal credentials and ID’s that you have entered when online.

It is good practice to make a copy of all files that are important to you and safer practice to keep these stored on an external hard drive. Today’s hard drives are often more gigabytes than the average person needs – and some are now terabyte in size (1,000 GBs). External hard drives prices are very reasonable and there the added advantage of having a good backup and storage strategy is that you are working toward optimizing free space on your PC so that it can run faster.

Try out Microsoft’s Sync Toy. This free tool makes synchronizing your files fast and easy. You can avoid duplication and feel assured that you haven’t missed backing up all your files.

Best Practices: 2. Configure Your Browser Privacy

You can configure your browser settings to better restrict the privacy controls. Refer to your browser settings and look for “privacy” or “security” (or both). By configuring these settings you choose what items to block or restrict including cookies and Private browsing or Do Not Track (DNT) browsing traffic. In recent years all major browsers have included a Do Not Track (DNT) option. This enables a user to choose to not have their online activities tracked. This applies to Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Opera. The one shortcoming of this: “The Do Not Track system is completely voluntary, and there are no legal or technological requirements for its use. As such, not all websites and advertisers will honor the request or may completely ignore it altogether.”[1]

The Personal Security and Privacy Scan

By using PC Clean Maestro you can detect personal data items that are automatically stored on your PC. Any of these items on their own may not constitute a substantial threat. However, these items together – personal addresses, passwords, account information, and more – can be used together to provide an intruder what they need to gain access to perform financial transactions or use your data unlawfully. Here is a summary of the items that PC Clean Maestro scans:

Personal Security

Personal Identity Information: IDs and passwords used for Windows and for Internet access.
Saved Forms Entry Data: name, address, phone number, credit card information.

Privacy

Chat & Instant Messaging History: Skype and Windows Messenger messaging content.
Internet Browsing History: visited URLs, downloads, search history, cached images.
Multimedia History: videos watched.
Windows & Application History: Windows clipboard, document history, applications used.

Note: For a complete list of categories scanned, including sub items, see this knowledge-base article. As we will see, you have the option of choosing only the items you want to scan and remove.

The Steps:

There are three areas of cleaning using the Clean Tool. We are staying focused on the privacy and security aspects of PC Clean Maestro. The following instructions detail how to remove items that are a threat to personal security and privacy.

Step 1: First you need to open the program. The window will appear similar to as seen below. We have expanded the Personal Security and Privacy sub-item sections to get a closer look at the items listed.

Select Items to Scan - PC Clean Maestro

Step 2: Select items to scan. Of the check boxes available you can review and clear items you want to remain on your PC.

Note: You can refer to the help file for instructions on how to use the three-state check box system.

Step 3: Initiate the scan using the “Start” button.

Step 4: Review and Clean. A summary of the scan is displayed including the number of detected items found in each category, the size that can be reclaimed, and a “Details” link. The link will provide the complete list of items found and the location of each item. You can clear any selected items before moving on to the next step.

Privacy and Security Scan Results - PC Clean Maestro

Step 5: Clean. Click the “Clean” button to permanently delete the selected items.

Note: Once you begin the Clean process, PC Clean Maestro presents a warning dialog when certain privacy items are selected from the Scan results. This is a preventive step, a safeguard measure, so as to not unintentionally remove items. Refer to the help file for a description of the warning, the list of items, and recommendations about what you need to do before choosing an option.

Best Practices: 3. Regular Use of PC Clean Maestro

Create an automated schedule. Use the Options button in the Main window and select the Clean Scan Schedule. From here you can configure when you want an automated scheduled scan to run.

Question Period:

What browsers do you support?
We support Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Windows Internet Explorer. We also support the cleanup of history information recorded by Skype, Adobe Flash Player, Microsoft Excel, Power Point, Microsoft Word and several Windows items.

What are cookies? Do I need to remove them?
Web cookies are used to identify you and prepare customized web pages. Here is an example: you do online banking and it involves entering your account and password. When you do a cookie is created that will store the account information so that when you next visit the site you only have to press the first letter or number of your account and it displays the rest. This is pretty handy right? This is where you have to decide if the convenience is worth the potential risk of having your account information passed on to someone who can access your PC without your knowledge or approval.

How often do I need to clean personal and private data?
Much of this depends on how often you perform certain functions on your PC. For example, when you do online banking a cookie is created when one is absent (even though you removed it from the previous session). You can look into not having your browser store web cookies but this is only one aspect of what you may want removed from your PC. Regular removal of your browser cache is good practice – it maintains your privacy and frees up space. Browser caches and a history of your online activities are automatically stored by your web browser.

Best Practices: 4. Staying on Guard

Take note of drastic changes to your PC! If there is a malicious item that has infected your PC, chances are it will alter the functioning of your PC. Make sure your vital financial information is not accessible as stated in this article. Next, consider using a trusted anti-malware application that can scan and remove the intrusion.
Be aware of suspicious emails and phone calls. Here are two examples:
1. An email arrives in your mailbox saying that your PayPal has been suspended (or your credit card is blocked). The email looks very authenticate. The same font and colors that PayPal uses on their website. The email uses your email address in the “From” column. The email goes on to instruct you to click a link to activate your account.What do you do? Not getting an actual email address from the trusted company is your first clue that something isn’t quite right. An informed PC user will hover the mouse cursor over the link and look in the bottom of the window (the status bar) to see if the link that is displayed is in fact one belonging to PayPal. To verify this is a potential hack or scam of some kind, you can also right-click the link – being very careful to not actually left-mouse click and get taken directly to a web page that may download unwanted items to your PC. So… you carefully, right-click the link and select “Copy Link Location”. You can now open your browser and check the validity of the URL by going to a site like URLVoid. Simply paste the link and submit it for verification. Even if it does come up clean… you can always go to the source. Contact the trusted company and give them the details. In this case… they will ask you to forward the emails so they can follow up with this spoof.
2. You get a phone call (with no phone ID displayed) and someone says they are from “Windows” and states they have detected that there is a virus on your computer. They immediately ask you if you are by your computer and if you can follow some instructions. You are directed to go to a web site and run some tests. What do you do?You do not have to follow their instructions if you do not trust who is on the other end of the phone. Ask for verification of who they are. Ask how they obtained your phone number. Ask them for their name and phone number so that you can call them back. You will find that the phone call will end quickly by them and you have protected your personal data and the integrity of your PC.

Keeping your PC safe requires a bit of effort and a whole lot of vigilance. Hackers are like predators – they will prey on the weak. In this case the weak are the uninformed. We hope this has helped you gain an upper hand in defending your PC safety.

Reference

[1] www.Wikipedia.org

Privacy and Security – Touchless Cyber Crime

by Andy Thompson on May 14, 2013

Synopsis: Our goal in presenting the following information is not to scare our reader base but to inform. With knowledge of real and potential PC crimes and threats you can take steps to guard yourself. Brace yourself for the real world as we take a look at some of the trends in cybercrime and security breaches. After that we introduce the privacy and security features available with PC Clean Maestro.

Cybercrime has been a growing concern since the onset of the first computer virus. The very first PC threats were more about status and cyber geeks flexing their brain muscle as they penetrate computer defenses and proliferate in typical virus fashion. These days there is much more to lose. Personal information and finances can be stolen with the use of more sophisticated and stealthy technology. One recent hot topics in this field is “skimming wallets” – theft which involves just walking past someone and picking up there credit card information. We will look at this and other forms of cybercrime and speak to how to guard yourself from PC cyber attacks.

Trends and Threats:

Researchers and security professional are in agreement: breaches of PC security are on the rise. This is not only at an individual level but even with institutions and businesses that have considerable expertise and finances directed specifically at cybercrime prevention.

Here are some outstanding examples:

In 2011, Sony failed to protect over 100 million user records and suffered losses of over 1 billion dollars along with customer relations.
Google, Yahoo, and dozens of Silicon Valley companies were hacked by the government of China in 2009. It was announced that it was for the purpose of gathering information on Chinese human rights activists although Google also stated that intellectual property was stolen. The exploitation took advantage of a weakness in Internet Explorer.
NASA experienced 13 security breaches in 2011. This occurred after spending just over a third of its 1.5 billion annual IT budget on cybersecurity. The attack resulted in hackers gaining full functional control of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory systems.
134 million credit and debit cards were exposed in March of 2008. This occurred despite the fact that security analysts had warned online retailers of the vulnerability. The attackers were able to install spyware via a SQL injection and obtain Heartland Payment Systems data.
April 26, 2013 – the website LivingSocial which offers online deals suffered a database hack and compromised the personal information of over 50 million people including names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. The attacks utilized web applications to access the databases.

There are numerous examples and the instances will go on despite the fact that continual research and money goes into prevention. The fact is cybercrime is innovative and exploits mistakes and takes advantage of technologies that are designed for our convenience.Several of the above examples involve institutional, corporate or business attacks – systems that were fortified by well-financed security systems. If these can fall prey to cyber attacks, it becomes easy to imagine how personal PC attacks can occur.

Identity Theft: This form of theft is considered one of the fastest growing crimes. Some reports[1] state that 9 million people in the US fall victim to identity theft and that in 2010 there were $37 billion in losses. For the most part online hackers are able to avoid being caught as less than 700 crimes lead to an arrest. One of the most challenging thefts in terms of detection is that of child identity theft:

Child advocates, regulators, financial services and other professionals agree it is a particularly damaging crime that can go undetected for years, only to be discovered when the victim applies for a student loan or credit card.[2]

At Stake:

There are those that feel there likely isn’t much at stake with respect to data obtained from a PC. However, with identify theft you stand the chance of a thief running up thousands of dollars in charges, committing crimes using your name, opening up a bank account and running up bills on credit cards that are charged to you. Identify theft can result in financial fraud involving frauds related to credit cards, tax refunds, social programs, mail fraud, and even other computer crime. What could be worse than becoming the victim of a cybercrime and be held accountable for other cybercrime? An example of this is the case in December of 2000 where a U.S. Air Force system was hacked and code for controlling communication and spy satellites was downloaded to a computer in Sweden. The Swedish destination had no idea and cooperated with the investigation and further activity was traced to Germany which was also believed to be used by a distant hacker

Then there is a loss of private information. On March of 2013, a website titled “The Secret Files” became public. It exposed personal and private information of numerous public figures and celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z, Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton. The information included social security numbers, credit reports, addresses and phone numbers of celebrities and public figures.

What about the ramifications with respect to loss of data? In 2006 a laptop in custody of a data analyst was stolen that contained personal and health data of about 26.5 million active duty troops and veterans. The agency has estimated that it will cost between $100 million to $500 million to prevent and cover possible losses from the data theft.[3]

The Technology:

Advancements in computing technology can lead to both convenience and, when used for fraudulent or harmful purposes, invasion and loss of proprietary data and personal finances. There are those referred to as “black hat” hackers that can carry out targeted attacks (possibly picked at random or for personal gain). They will scan the network to determine how vulnerable it is by testing all the ports on a host machine. Any open ports that do respond can allow access to the hacker.

Even more prominent is the onslaught of a new breed of hackers that have little to no expertise. These hackers are referred to as a “script kiddie” or skiddie. They simply download from the web pre-made automated tools to break into other’s computers.

Near Field: Smartphones and mobile devices can use Near Field Communications in such a manner as to conduct data exchange, contactless transactions, and more complex communications such as Wi-Fi. Hackers are using this technology to brush by someone to gain credit card information. It’s a form of pick pocketing without even touching someone.

More widespread and well-established techniques involve stealing ones laptop or gaining online access to ones PC. Accessing the data is a matter of getting past and security and encryption by means of hacking the code.

All websites and computer-related programs are run by some sort of code. Whatever program was used to design it, such as HTML, C++ or JavaScript, hackers try to exploit the code and find its weakness. They try to find a way to get around the security codes by using special programs or writing their own codes to try and alter the original. [4]

Drive-by Downloads: A special note must be made for the drive-by download method of hacking. This involves the following steps:

A hacker injects code into a vulnerable website that is malicious in nature.
The injected code exploits vulnerabilities in the browser of those people that surf to the infected website. This can also occur through commonly used plug-ins such as Flash and Adobe.
The malware silently works in a way that, in some cases, can evade antivirus detection. It launches malicious applications that control the infected machine and steals private and personal information.

If you are interested in reading more on the subject of hacking we recommend that you take a look at the PC World article that describes the process used by a 23 year old white hacker (an ethical security expert) and a 19 year old black hat hacker. This describes the use of programs that can identify the computer information, ones to crack passwords, and other tools to examine the content of the PC being targeted. [5]

Private Data: One important note about information that can be collected and used by companies: there are public and private databases that gather up statistics about you: “everything from your shopping habits to your health history”. This information can be made available, even bought and sold “to creditors, employers, landlords, insurers, law enforcement agencies, and, of course, criminals”.[6] This can have life-changing impacts on you or it can merely be used to direct advertisements in your direction when you are browsing online.

Solution – Guard Yourself:

Common strategies to guarding yourself from attacks include – what else – using technologies designed to protect your PC. This includes security firewalls, data encryption, and using passwords (and regularly changing passwords). However, it is commonly agreed that utilizing security tools alone, such as antivirus software, firewall and intrusion detection applications, will not suffice. You need to patch up vulnerabilities. Commonly used programs, including your web browser and your operating system, need to have the latest security patch upgrades.

Those that are self-proclaimed hackers will state that there are no safe places to hide your personal information once hacked. For this reason alone, we recommend the most effective strategy – remove confidential and private data on your PC.

Remove and protect Confidential Data:

Although you may not be aware of it, your PC stores personal and private information such as passwords, credit card information, email, chat communications, and more. This exposes you to identity and security threats. The need to completely remove confidential data from your PC is fundamental but requires some understanding of the fact that data can be recreated even after you have supposedly deleted it.

Tip – Deletion: Complete deletion of data needs to occur when throwing out or re-selling devices including PC’s, laptops, mobile devices, USB keys, external data storage, and the like. You need to look into methods of file deletion and reformatting of the drive.

Keep in mind that standard deletion of files in most cases will not be sufficient. When you delete something it is removed to the Recycle bin so that you have the opportunity to re-claim it. You need to empty it periodically. We recommend that your use the technology available with PC Clean Maestro as an effective method of cleaning your PC as we have outlined in our previous article, and to remove private data to safely protect yourself from losing private information as a result of a malicious incident of cybercrime.

Tip – Configure Your Browser: You can configure your browser settings to better restrict the privacy controls. By doing so you choose what items to block or restrict including cookies and Private browsing or Do Not Track (DNT) browsing traffic. In recent years all major browsers have included a Do Not Track option. This enables a user to choose to not have their online activities tracked. This applies to Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Opera. The one shortcoming of this: “The Do Not Track system is completely voluntary, and there are no legal or technological requirements for its use. As such, not all websites and advertisers will honor the request or may completely ignore it altogether.”[7]

For a list of items identified as private and related to personal security, please see our blog article along with complete instructions on how to safely remove these.

Now that you are in the know about the potential of hacking and about keeping your personal computing private, we will provide some instruction on how to go about it in our blog article including how to use the Security and Privacy tools. We hope the PC Clean Maestro operations will help you feel more confident about operating your PC safely.

References

[1] www.InvestingAnswers.com

[2] www.IdentityTheftAssistance.org

[3] Wikipedia.org

[4] www.ehow.com

[5] PCWorld.com

[6] www.consumerreports.org

[7] Wikipedia.org

The Clean and Uninstaller Tools

April 16, 2013

This blog article focuses on the free functionality of PC Clean Maestro – the removal of Junk files and the Uninstaller. There are considerable advantages to be realized by cleaning your PC which we cover in our newsletter. In a nutshell, systematic cleaning can improve PC performance and responsiveness. It is also a highly recommended step in the process of defragmentation.

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Too Much Junk: Stay Lean and Clean

April 15, 2013

Hard disk defragmentation is one of the most effective methods of improving PC system performance. Prior to applying this procedure it is highly recommended to remove clutter from your PC – what is often referred to as “junk” files. We are going to look at the symptoms your PC could be displaying. Next, we will examine what some experts suggest and some of the challenges associated with these tasks. Finally we are going to look at performing two solutions using PC Clean Maestro: one, cleaning junk files and two, uninstalling programs that are not necessary.

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Fix or Disable Java

March 12, 2013

There are Java errors that can appear and require your attention to resolve. Another major issue with Java relates to security. Many experts are beginning to say turn off Java altogether. This is a difficult decision to make and we have covered this in some detail in our newsletter: “Java – The Hacked.” For the purposes of this article we will focus on how to fix Java errors, keep your version of Java recent, and offer recommendations. Simply put: if you want to use Java error free –run the updated version. If you decide on continued use… consider our suggestion for safe surfing.

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Java – The Hacked

March 12, 2013

We explore in this article a contentious subject – Java. There are those that are very insistent that the benefits of Java do not outweigh the fact that this very popular technology and widely-used tool is a target for hackers and virus makers and they are exploiting it. However, it is because of the widespread use of Java on devices and web pages that makes it a target for hackers. As a result security flaws have been exploited and patches are created in an attempt to keep up with security. First, this article will describe what Java is and where it is used. Some examples of recent security exploits are provided, and then we will offer some solutions and recommendations.

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How to Reset Internet Explorer

February 8, 2013

Over time and frequent use, Internet Explorer can accumulate extra “add-ons” and can experience changes that result in slow performance. The result of unwanted add-ons can be slower times when opening IE, slow browsing speed (it takes longer to view the pages you browse to), and unexpected behaviours such as crashes and program freezes. A good indication that you need to reset your IE to its original “factory-installed” state. With PC TuneUp Maestro you can easily use two IE Repair tools to address these issues.

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