A point to make for Nec207
Computers are not magically infected. For a computer to become infected, a combination of ALL of the below must happen :
A. The content in question must be executable software
B. The software must be malicious
C. The software must be downloaded to the local computer
D. The software must be run on the local computer
Eliminate any one of those, and your computer remains clean
Quote:
Originally Posted by nec207
Here is list of do not do or you will get malware from reading computer books and times in past I got malware.
1-free music
2-free movies
3-free games
4-free software/program
5-free stuff
6. porn of any sort hard ,soft ,fettish
7-read every spam and junk mail
8-P2P and torrent
9.cracks and secuity keys
You get malware in less than a day trying to so this!! I say again YOU WILL get Malware in LESS THAN DAY trying to do this.
And google image search is not safe .
If you must use google image search make sure the filter is on SafeSearch strict.Do not key any thing in the search box Popstars , American idols, celebrities ,fashion,people or blogs or anyone of above.
Never try to get wallpaper ,themes or bachgrounds or skins for computer?I know Pop-ups and ads can be easily blocked with firefox adblockplus.The Adblock Plus for firfox will block most Pop-ups and ads .
DO Not click on pictures or links . If a pop up does come up use ctr-alt-delete to bring up task manager to close it never try to click the x or close on the pop up.You must turn HTML off in the e-mail program and turn off active-X ASAP.
If a site has alot of pop ups and ads get out of the site ASAP.
Doing simple rules it cut down on most of the malware.
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Free stuff you mentioned can be divided into groups :
Not executable : Pictures (wallpapers, porn, . . .), movies (. . ., porn), music, serial numbers (text files), ebooks etc. They contain no executable code. When you open them, an application which is already installed on the computer (like image viewer or media player) is called to open them. The application reads the content of the image or whatever and decodes it. If the content is really an image etc it will be displayed. If the content is something else, the viewer will fail to decode the file and nothing will happen. So those cannot harm the computer in any way
Executable : Screensavers, software, cracks / keygens. They are executable code. If this code is malicious, it will harm the computer
Interpretable : Flash applications. They are read by an external application (flash player), but can instruct the application to do stuff that can be malicious. Its up to the application to decide whether to obey those instructions. It will harm the computer if the flash application is malicious AND the flash player obeys its malicious instructions
Free software has 2 definitions :
Not paid for : This definition is mostly used by closed source software (like Windows) users, and by you. It implies that you dont have to pay for the software. It does not imply that the software is safe, and in many cases it really is not
Open source : This definition is mostly used by open source software (like Linux) users. It implies that you can technically and legally view and edit the source code of the software. This means that if the software is malicious, it will be easy to spot and repair. So free software in this meaning of free is actually safe, even safer than some paid software
Free (not paid for) software that is malicious (includes adware spyware etc) won't be made free (open source), cause if its open source then its easy to remove the malicious part and redistribute the "cleaned" software. Malicious sofware developers want to prevent this
When you download a file, it is just copied to your disk. It does not have to be opned or executed automatically. So you can download unsafe files, and they wll not infect your computer unless you open them
After downloading a file, detect its type with your operationg system. If it is not executable or interpretable, it is safe to click on it - it will be opened in an application. If it is executable or interpretable (and your interpreter is not very secure), it is a risk. Do you trust the place from where you downloaded it ? if no, then dont open it
Sometimes downloads on wallpaper (or similar) sites download malicious exectutable stuff instead of the wallpaper you wanted. After downloading, detect the type of the file before opening it, and dont open it if its an unexpected executable
Linux (and some other operating systems) dont allow execution of files unless specified by the user. In Linux you can click any downloaded file. If its executable, you'll be notified that it is not allowd to execute and you must allow it, then you know its an executable if you didnt check before
HTTP, email, torrent and other P2P protocols are just ways to download stuff. The stuff you downloaded can be malicious or not, executable or not etc. This does not depend on how you downloaded it
When you download executable or interpretable stuff, dont open stuff that came from a place you don;t trust. In torrents, the torrent itself is a text file that contains data about the download. The text file is not malicious by itself, but can lead to a malicious file. So still ask yourself if you trust the source
Emails sent from friends must NOT be trusted. If the friend's computer is infected, the malware can email itself to others from his mailing list. If you got an unexpected attachment or link from your friend, and he claims he didn;t send it, ask him to test his computer for malware. To protect you (from spam) and him (from spam and malware), dont click links inside the bad email
Spam emails are not dangerous to the computer (you can check their contents and attachments and not execute them), but can cause you to get more spam if you open them. The spammers try to detect whether you opened the email (if you clicked on a link in it, or loaded an invisible image in an HTML email) so they know that you read and its good idea to send you more
Also good suggestion to disable HTML in emails
I am not a Facebook user, but if i understand correctly the "Facebook apps" run inside Facebook and not on the local computer. Then they dont pose any risk to the local computer, at most they can read or damage contents / passwords / etc. in your Facebook profile
(Flash games are interpretable, and pose the same risks as any other interpretable stuff. Use a secure interpreter to prevent the risks)
Anything else (ads / popups / etc) are nuisance but not danger
