Tools

Tools

Many of you may ask “why do I need any of these tools?”. Well here are a few explanations as to what a Virus, Trojan, Nuke Attack and the many other things that can happen to you without these tools, especially if you download files off the net or visit chat rooms.

Virus

A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Most viruses can also replicate themselves. All computer viruses are manmade. A simple virus that can make a copy of itself over and over again is relatively easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across network and bypassing security systems

AntiVirus

A utility that searches a hard disk for viruses and removes any that are found. Most antivirus programs include an auto-update feature that enables the program to download profiles of new viruses so that it can check for the new viruses as soon as they are discovered.

DoS_Attacks

Short for denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a network or personal computer that is designed to bring the network/PC to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols. For all known DoS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators or PC users can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like viruses, new DoS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by hackers. The easiet way to protect a network or a PC is to use a properly designed firewall.

Firewall

A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls can be implemented in both hardware and software, or a combination of both. Firewalls are frequently used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the Internet, especially intranet. All messages entering or leaving the intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria. A firewall is considered a first line of defense in protecting private information. For greater security, data can be encrypted.

Firewalls can also be used to help protect you against Trojans and Viruses but are not a substitute for AntiVurus and Trojan Cleaner software. Most dial-up internet users need not worry about firewalls unless they frequantly visit chat rooms, whether they are java chat rooms or IRC chat rooms. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Trojan or Trojan Horse

A destructive program that masquerades as a benign application. Unlike a viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan horse is a program that claims to rid your computer of viruses but instead introduces viruses onto your computer.

The term comes from a story in Homer's Iliad, in which the Greeks give a giant wooden horse to their foes, the Trojans, ostensibly as a peace offering. But after the Trojans drag the horse inside their city walls, Greek soldiers sneak out of the horse's hollow belly and open the city gates, allowing their compatriots to pour in and capture Troy.

Anti-Trojan

A utility that searches a hard disk for Trojans and removes any that are found. Most Trojan Cleaner programs include an auto-update feature that enables the program to download profiles of new Trojans so that it can check for the new Trojans as soon as they are discovered. Many of the AtiVirus programs will search for Trojans too, the best of which is Norton AV, but it is always best to be sure and using a Trojan Cleaner as well as a AV program is the best way to stay safe.

Spam

Electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. However, if a long-lost brother finds your e-mail address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it's unsolicited. Real spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.
In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth. Consequently, there are many organizations, as well as individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to fight spam with a variety of techniques. But because the Internet is public, there is really little that can be done to prevent spam, just as it is impossible to prevent junk mail. However, some online services have instituted policies to prevent spammers from spamming their subscribers.

There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam:

Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.

Anti-Spam

Spam has become ubiquitous - one of the facts of life, like taxes. Until strong anit-spam laws are passed and actually enforced, spam proliferation will continue because it's proven to reach a mass audience. If it didn't work, spammers wouldn't waste their time.
Most people, however, see spam as the scourge of e-mail and look for ways to stop it from infecting their e-mail boxes.

There are several ways to block spam from your e-mail inbox. They say prevention is the best medicine, so avoid giving out your e-mail address to unfamiliar or unknown recipients. This has become very difficult to do, however. Spammers can use software programs that troll the Internet looking for e-mail addresses, much like throwing a net in the ocean and seeing what gets caught in it. Nowadays it's almost impossible to shop online without providing a valid e-mail address. Offline stores are even asking for e-mail addresses in exchange for discounts or free merchandise. Realize that what they are doing is potentially opening the door for a flood of unsolicited e-mails. These organizations will most likely turn around and sell their list to someone else looking for valid e-mails. In these cases, it might be wise to have more than one e-mail address, one for friends, family and colleagues and another for unfamiliar sources. There are many free e-mail services in cyberspace to choose from.

However, also know that even trustworthy sources may be unwittingly shelling out your e-mail address. Ever receive an e-mail greeting card? The sender has given your e-mail to an organization that may very well be compiling e-mail lists to sell to spammers.

A second way to stop spam is to use your e-mail application's filtering features. Most e-mail applications allow you to block specific messages. When an offending e-mail comes in, set the filter to block further incoming mails from that sender.

A more aggressive approach to ridding unwanted e-mail is to report the e-mailer to the spammer's ISP. This is not always an easy task. First you must determine the spam's origins. Many of the bigger and more commercial ISPs forbid spammers from using their services and, once discovered, will actively ban the offending parties from using their services. But there are plenty of smaller ones that do not. To find the spam's origins, instruct your e-mail program to display all of the e-mail's header information. View the "Received" lines, and working from top to bottom you can often pinpoint the origin of spam. Spammers don't typically just send e-mails from their ISP to yours; that'd be too easy and apparent. Instead, they channel the e-mails through one or more ISPs in order to obfuscate the origin, but each computer that handles the e-mail will attach a "Received" line to the header. There are numerous Internet resources available for help in tracking down the source of spam.

Don't be fooled by phrases such as "to be removed from this list, click here." Spammers use these types of catch phrases to entice users to respond to the e-mails. The spammers may or may not remove your e-mail from their list. Either way you have told the spammer that your e-mail address is valid and reaches a real person. They know this because you responded and asked them to removed you from the list. This can actually be more valuable to the spammers because they can now sell your address to another spammer with the assurance that the e-mail address is legitimate. So you may have been removed from one list, but there's a good chance that you will end up on another.

Yet another way to deal with spam is to just not be bothered by it. Accept it as a fact of life. Delete the e-mails from your inbox without reading them and move on from there.