CompuClever Blog

Computer fixes: tips for avoiding malware on your computer

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Over the past month or so you may have heard about a threat to your computer called “DNSChanger”. As a result of this malware, millions of computers around the world could have potentially lost all connection to the Internet on Monday, July 11th. This is because the DNSChanger malware infected computers by modifying a computer’s DNS to point toward “rogue servers”.

In a nutshell, DNS is an extremely important service that is used to convert a website’s name (eg, www.compuclever.com) into a distinct IP address that is easily found by your computer.

In this case, DNSChanger malware infected computers to send web surfers to its own fake web pages, ideally to generate profit from ads and upload even more malware and viruses onto visiting computers.

The FBI discovered what was happening and actually hosted fake web pages of its own to analyze the traffic being sent to DNSChanger bogus websites. The crooks were captured (they were from Estonia, birthplace of Skype and Kazaa), and the FBI decided to pull the plug on its fake web pages on July 11, 2012.

As a result, owners of computers infected with DNSChanger have to figure out some way to reconfigure their DNS, because it will be impossible to surf the internet without it. Continue reading...

Speed up Internet Explorer

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There’s a couple of tips and tricks for both Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer that should speed things up.

If you use the IE browser and want instant access to your favorite websites, add a sub-menu from the Windows 7 Start Menu to get instant access to your Favorites. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Right-click an empty area of the Taskbar and choose “Properties”
  2. The “Taskbar and Start Menu Properties” multi-tabbed dialog box should appears
  3. Click the “Start Menu” tab
  4. Click the “Customize” button
  5. The “Customize Start Menu” dialog box appears
  6. Check “Favorites menu”
  7. Click “OK” on the dialog boxes to close them

You now have instant access to your favorites!

A cool shortcut for Windows Explorer – use check boxes!

You can select non-adjacent files in Explorer using Ctrl-click, but there is an easier way using check boxes. In Windows Explorer, click Organize, then select Folder and search options.

On the View tab, under Advanced Settings, scroll down to select Use check boxes to select items. Now you can easily select multiple items using only the mouse. Continue reading...

How to create a safe password

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Practically every day we hear about email and bank accounts getting hacked, mostly because of  “password entropy”: we often don’t bother to change passwords frequently, the passwords we do have are easy to crack, and we often use the same password for multiple accounts.

  • Length: Passwords should incorporate 8 or more characters.
  • Complexity: Include letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers.
  • Change your passwords often: Change the passwords for your email, banking, and credit card websites about every three months.
  • Variety: Don’t use the same password for everything. By cracking one password it’s easy to find out where you do your online banking etc.

How to create a strong password:

  1. Start with a sentence: Create a strong safe password
  2. Remove the spaces between the words in the sentence: Createastrongsafepassword
  3. Intentionally misspell some of the words: Cre@teas7rongs@fep@$$word
  4. Add length with numbers: Cre@teas7rongs@fep@$$word2112

Extra hints:

Try Microsoft’s secure password checker.

Never create passwords that incorporate:

  • Plaintext or “dictionary words” in any language (that’s why we modified our password with numbers and symbols).
  • Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.
  • Sequences or repeated characters such as 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).
  • Personal information: Your name, birthday, driver’s license, passport number, or similar information.
Continue reading...

How to protect your online identity

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Have you ever Googled your name online? If you haven’t, try it out: you might be surprised at what you discover. It’s possible that your home phone number, address, family photos and even birthday may appear as search results.

Thanks to the killer combination of social networks, bad passwords, and highly personal information stored on our computers, we’re all at risk at some point of having our online identity hijacked, sometimes with disastrous results.

Social networks make it easier for hackers to learn more about us

Facebook has 800 million active users worldwide, and marks the biggest cultural transformation of the past 5 years – social networking is here to stay.

We love to share everything online, from pictures of our children to birthdays and other celebrations. Often we use social networks to connect with former classmates, or broadcast where we went to school.

The visibility of personal info makes “identity theft” an increasingly common problem.

For example, it’s quite easy for a determined hacker or even prankster to pull together various pieces of your identity together to potentially access your bank account, or other accounts containing your credit card information such as iTunes.

How many times have you been prompted for your mother’s maiden name in order to get help with a credit card bill? Continue reading...

How to create a system repair disk

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blue screen of deathIt’s inescapable: there will come a time in the life of your computer when you will not get it to start properly. It could be caused by a virus or malware, a hard disk failure, or a corrupted registry.

The end result is the same: your computer will not start, and you will be unable to access any of the programs you’ve paid for, including, for example, Microsoft Office suite or even Windows itself. Replacing the software from scratch can cost hundreds of dollars, and sometimes it’s even necessary to replace the computer itself.

At the very least, you’ll be saving yourself hefty computer repair fees, which can run towards $100 an hour!

How to create a System Repair Disk

If you have one of those bad Windows days where you can’t boot up your computer properly, what you really want is something you can quickly use to get at a command prompt so you can properly troubleshoot.

Windows 7 now includes the ability to create a system repair disc, which is essentially a CD-bootable version of Windows that just includes the command prompt and a suite of system tools.

The trick is to create a system repair disk *now* rather than later when you’ll need it. Continue reading...