Cybercrime and Computer Security

A few facts that you should know about cyber crime in 2008:

1. Average keylogger price was $23 in the black market
2. You can get the hackers' service for as cheap as $2
3. The most pirated software in 2008 was desktop games.
4. The most expensive malicious software kit was priced at $225

5. From all the information type sold in 2008, 18% was banking account information.
6. The price for card credit information was between $0.10 to $25
7. The card credit information sold caused $5.3 billion loss in 2008

All these facts were revealed by Symantec at Norton Summit 2009 recently. The black market of malicious software acts like a normal business and people trade and exchange information for a price.

Keep in mind that even though internet makes life easier, some people out there are not so sincere and will try their best to earn money the wrong way.

So, join my 5-Day PC Security E-course to learn how you can protect your PC http://www.chuangcomputer.com/5day and do it today!

Rootkit - The Malware Ninja

Have you ever heard of rootkit? I'm sure that most of you have, but for those who doesn't, rootkit is software designed to infiltrate your operating system stealthily. Then, it will create a backdoor in your system so the hackers can gain access into it.

It serve just like the Japanese ninja in ancient time for its creator. It's almost impossible to detect the rootkit when your operating system is running. But, even though a rootkit is like a ninja, that doesn't mean that you cannot remove it from your system at all.

Scan your computer during boot time to detect the rootkit as it cannot hide its presence during that time. Another way to remove it is by using the Rootkit Revealer from SysInternal. Search it on Google and you will find it.

Some antivirus do provide boot time scanning such as Avast! Antivirus. So, if you're trying to find antivirus that can do just that, you can try Avast!. Big company like Sony also used rootkit previously in their CD's.

They used it to prevent people from pirating their CD's. However, this shows that they can infiltrate your sytem. Even though it does nothing much, except something related to their audio, still, it's unethical.

Finally, Sony has to remove all the XCP rootkit but the software that they provided to remove the rootkit actually brings a lot more security vulnerabilities. But in the end, they remove the rootkit from all their CD's.

As you can see, even big company can install a rootkit into your system. I'm afraid that more and more people are using this method in order to infiltrate our system by disguising it inside a software.

I guess it's better to use MAC for the safety reasons.

Switching To Firefox From IE - Firefox or Internet Explorer?

Yeah..It's official. I'm switching to Firefox. IE is too much hassle. Sometimes it crashes, lag, slow and full of security vulnerabilities.

Previously, I don't have any problem with IE, but since it crashed that day, I switched to Firefox and my life had been better.

Honestly, if they (Microsoft) wants to attract more users, they need to do more than this.

Switch to Firefox and your life will be better

Physic In Cryptography. Is It Possible In The Future We'll Use Biological Encryption?

Quantum cryptography is a different world in cryptology. It's uses physic rather than mathematics to encode a message. It's a new and different world. I wrote about this in my previous blog post.

This technology actually provides a way to know if someone is eavesdropping during the message transfer and immediately disconnect the network transfer. Thus preventing the eavesdropper to get the message.

Now cryptography has changed from mathematics to physics. Maybe one day we can have information encrypted in biological form just like the theory from "The Andromeda Strain" novel. Even though for the mean time it seems impossible, but who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Biological encryption in network transfer? Maybe we don't even need a computer network to transfer it.

The Code Makers and Code Breakers

The war between the code makers and the code breakers in the world of cryptology is a never ending war. The code makers create codes that impossible to break while the code breakers will try their best to crack the codes.

The new technology in cryptology, the quantum cryptology, according to some experts is the most secure and advance technology and it's almost impossible to break.

Even though we have the most advance technology, but we need to remember that human involved in the system is one of the elements that can contribute to the breaking of the code.

The quantum cryptology is a technology that change information to pulse of laser light and from there, a random generated key-stream will be added to the information making it impossible to decrypted. For example, let's say the information that we need to send is a text like this:

"this is the sample text"

Then, a random key-stream will be added to the information and it will look like this:

"t87hi98s 98i9s t65he s67am932p2l3e te621x4t"

This data then will be sent to the recipient and after they receive it successfully, the random key-stream will be removed thus revealing the original text. In the example above, just remove the number from the text and you will be able to read the original text.

It is impossible to intercept this data because any attempt to disturb the data will change the data itself. The light pulse is very sensitive to changes and therefore, any changes made will cause the communication network to be shut down. Therefore, the irresponsible party cannot intercept the data.

However, what we need to remember is that even if we have the most advance technology, but human element makes it easy for the code breakers to break the code and revealing the data.

There is a saying that says, "The thief will be one step forward than the cop". So, in order for us to ensure safe data transfer, we need to fix the human element first or create a system that didn't involve the human element in any way.

Just my 2 cents.

How To Celebrate The Earth Day as a Computer User.

Today is April 22 and it's the The Earth Day. The day to inspire awareness for the Earth environment. In today's post, I would like to share with you how to celebrate Earth Day as a computer and internet user.

1. Shut down your computer if you're not using it because some people seldom shut down their computer or laptop. It's a waste of power because power is not free. Save energy and we can save the Earth.

2. Recycle your old hardware. If you have any old computer hardware that you didn't use, don't throw it away. Instead, try to sell it at Ebay and earn some money.

3. Reduce your screen brightness. Reducing your screen brightness can save your battery power which in turn, will save the energy used to recharge your battery.

4. Recycle your old PC. This is almost the same as (2) but instead of hardware, sell your old laptop or PC at Ebay.

5. Reduce your online time and use your computer only when necessary. Most of us will go online 24/7/365 with no reason. It's better for you to go out there, do some exercise or do something that can save Earth rather than going online doing nothing. It'll save the Earth and yourself.

6. Post this post at your blog and other places. Save the Earth by posting this blog post at your blog or you can post it anywhere that you think is suitable for it. Remember to mention that this blog post comes from Chuang Computer Tips

Want to add more ways on how to save the Earth? Place a comment here and support the Earth Day.

BTW, if you want to join my 5-Day PC Security E-course, you can join by clicking this link http://www.chuangcomputer.com/5day

Does Mozilla Contain Spyware?

Well, as far as I know, Mozilla does not contain spyware because I use Mozilla Firefox all the time. At first, I actually used Internet Explorer 7. But due to the security problems, I switch to Mozilla Firefox because I think it provides more security.

So, for those who think that Mozilla contain spyware, I can assure you that it's safe as far as I know.

However, if you want to do your own test, you can try this:

1. Download Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware Free
2. Update the software and scan your system after installing Mozilla Firefox.
3. If both software didn't find any malicious software, then you can say that Mozilla Firefox is safe.

Try it yourself so you can learn how to determine which software contains spyware and which does not.

Oh, if you want to learn more about computer security, subscribe to my 5-day PC Security E-course here http://www.chuangcomputer.com/5day

Windows 7? We'll See

I think most of you have heard about the upcoming and improved Microsoft Windows, The Windows 7 which is still in Beta. According to Bill Gates, this version is more user-centric. You can check all the features new to Windows 7 here Features New To Windows 7

Performance test by ZDNet suggested that this version of Windows had beaten XP and Vista in few areas such as boot and shut down time. I didn't download the Windows 7 Beta. But I think this version of Windows will be criticize heavily at first just like when Vista first come out. Only after some time, it will be accepted by public.

The release of Windows 7 just 3 years after Vista was released shows that XP is better than Vista. This actually proved some of the professionals comment that commented about this. Vista was released after 5-6 years after XP was released. Can you see the trend here?

I don't have any prove this is true or not because this is just my own opinion based on logical thinking. But, it just proved that Vista lacks few things that XP has.

About Windows 7, I don't have much comment about it now. We just have to wait and see.

BTW, if you guys want to join my 5-day PC Security E-course, you can do so by visiting this link http://www.chuangcomputer.com/5day <- It's free

Free and Paid Antivirus. Which One?

Anti-virus is very important in order to protect your computer from online threats. However, most of us will ask, which is the best, the paid version or the free version. IMO the paid version is certainly better than the free version. But I'm not saying that the free version cannot provide you a very good protection.



Why the paid version is better?

First of all, if you compare the paid version and the free version in terms of after sales support from the anti-virus company, they will give the priority to the paid customers and if you are using the paid version, you have lots of feature that are not available in the free version.

However, keep in mind that I'm not saying the free version cannot give you a decent protection. I'm just saying that the paid version is better in terms of support and the feature that it has. The free version can also give you protection against the online threats. It's just that you need to work a little bit harder.

For example, the free version of Avast Antivirus don't have a built-in anti-spyware and anti-rootkit. But the paid version has it. So, in order to protect yourself from spyware and rootkit, you need to find another protection software. If you're using the paid version, you can save your time finding the anti-spyware and anti-rootkit software.



What I want to say is this, the free version can give you the same protection like the paid version. It's just that it lacks in few features and it's time consuming for the free users. You still can get a decent protection from free version but in the paid version, you can save a lot of time.

If you don't know anything about protecting yourself and your PC from online threats, you can subscribe to my 5-day PC Security E-course for free. It's free for now. But I don't know when it will stay as a free e-course and when I will start charging people who subscribe to my e-course.

So, subscribe to it today for free before I put a price to it. Go here http://www.chuangcomputer.com/5day

How You Can Learn PC Security In 5 Days

Hi,

Do you experience these problems?:

1. Your internet connection is very slow even though you're on broadband connection
2. Your browser sometimes open certain websites that you don't know
3. Your homepage has changed.
4. The CPU usage of your computer is very high even though nothing is running.
5. and much more weird things happening to your computer.

Now, would you like to learn how to fix these problems? Best of all, you can learn it for free.

Announcing my 5-Day PC Security E-Course that can teach you how to solve all the problems.

In this 5-Day E-course, you will learn:

• What type of malicious software that will run only if you click it.

• How you can surf the web anonymously

• How people can steal your identity from the Internet.

• Fighting spam

• How you can get rid of the nasty pests lurking inside your PC.

• Bonus tip on the 6th day!

• 8 free tools to help you to secure your computer!

How to join this FREE e-course?

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I'm going to charge this course next time. So, take this chance and join it for free today.

Error 1327 Invalid Drive i:\

This was what I get when I tried to install a Vodafone software:

"Error 1327 Invalid Drive i:\"

Immediately I ran a research and found out a way how to solve this problem. Actually, from what I know, you can use this method as long as this type of message pop out. Maybe you'll get "invalid drive H" or something like that and I think this method can work too.

So, here's how.

At first, I typed "CMD" using start->run. Then the command prompt will appear. All you need to do is just type a simple command. You just need to type "subst[space]i:[space]C:\" and you can install the software without any problem. If the invalid drive is "h", replace the "i" at the command prompt and so on.

That's all. As simple as that.