How to Solution Here

Who are the Players in the Antivirus Industry?

Everyone in the United States has heard of the leading antivirus

vendors Symantec, Mcafee, Computer Associates, and Trend Micro.

These companies have market-leading presence in the United

States.  Microsoft, as well, has plans become a key player in

this market.  Microsoft acquired intellectual property and

technology from GeCad software in 2003, a company based in

Bucharest, Romania.  They also acquired Pelican Software, which

had a behavior based security as well as Giant Company Software

for spyware and Sybari Software, which manages virus, spam, and

phishing filtering.

A lot of discussion has centered on whether Microsoft with come

to own a dominant position in the antivirus market by simply

bundling its technologies with its operating systems at no

charge.  This is a similar technique applied in other markets

such as word processing and Internet browsers.

Of course there are a number of antivirus vendors who also play

in this market. There are many companies with great market

presence in other countries that are beginning to become more

widely known. These vendors include GriSoft out of the Czech

Republic, Sophos in the united Kingdom, Panda Software out of

Spain, Kaspersky in Russia, SoftWin in Romania, F-Secure in

Finland, Norman in Norway, Arcabit in Poland, VirusBuster out of

Hungary, and AhnLab in South Korea.

It is not clear where the industry is heading and everyone in

this market faces a rapidly changing landscape. The amount of

effort to find and provide fixes for viruses is staggering.

Malicious programs are getting more complex and the number of

them is increasing.  Many companies may find themselves without

the resources to match the efforts of those truly bent on

creating havoc.  Some virus companies are getting of hundreds of

new samples a day! Moreover, the new viruses are getting

“smarter” in that they propagate themselves quickly and they

often hide themselves and are smart enough to move around in a

system by renaming themselves in an effort to make it hard to

remove them.
Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

About Encryption and Making Your System Secure
What does encryption do for me?

Encryption and cryptographic software has been used in many different ways to make systems more secure. This article discusses only a few ways that such software can make your system more secure, including:

1) Encrypting your email

2) Encrypting your files

To programs are mentioned that will help encrypt information. There are many more programs out there that will help, but these programs are good and a good place to start as any. They have the added benefit of both being free with source code available.

Will encryption stop people from accessing my information?

Encryption simply makes it harder for people to gain access to important information, like passwords or sensitive information in a file. The first thing you should know about encryption is that the algorithm that is used to encrypt can be simple or more complex and that affects how securely what you have encrypted is protected. Encryption systems have been broken when the method of encryption is understood by hackers and is easy to break.

Why bother to encrypt my email?

It should be noted that email is far less secure than paper mail for two very good reasons: first, electronic data can be accessed easily over an Internet and secondly, electronic data is really simple to copy. There is a very good chance that someone has snooped around in your email despite your best intentions to stop it.

How do I go about encrypting my email?

There are many programs out there that can help you encrypt your email. A very popular one is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) or its Gnu offshoot GPG.

PGP (http://www.pgpi.org/) self-describes itself this way: This “is a program that gives your electronic mail something that it otherwise doesn’t have: Privacy. It does this by encrypting your mail so that nobody but the intended person can read it. When encrypted, the message looks like a meaningless jumble of random characters. PGP has proven itself quite capable of resisting even the most sophisticated forms of analysis aimed at reading the encrypted text.”

Why bother to encrypt my files?

The answer to this boils down to what you store on your computer. If you have financial data with important information like social security numbers, email addresses, account numbers and passwords, then you open yourself up to losing very valuable information. Most corporate Internet security employees will attest to the widespread theft of very valuable information. As long as you are connected to the Internet you are vulnerable.

How do I go about encrypting my files?

AxCrypt File Encryption Software (http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/) Self-described as “Free Personal Privacy and Security for Windows 98/ME/NT/2K/XP with AES-128 File Encryption, Compression and transparent Decrypt and Open in the original application.”

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com

Phishing For Your Identity

Who hasn’t received an email directing them to visit a familiar website where they are being asked to update their personal information?  The website needs you to verify or update your passwords, credit card numbers, social security number, or even your bank account number.  You recognize the business name as one that you’ve conducted business with in the past.  So, you click on the convenient “take me there” link and proceed to provide all the information they have requested.  Unfortunately, you find out much later that the website is bogus.  It was created with the sole intent to steal your personal information.  You, my friend, have just been “phished”.

Phishing (pronounced as “fishing”) is defined as the act of sending an email to a recipient falsely claiming to have an established, legitimate business.  The intent of the phisher is to scam the recipient into surrendering their private information, and ultimately steal your identity.

It is not at easy as you think to spot an email phishing for information.  At first glance, the email may look like it is from a legitimate company. The “From” field of the e-mail may have the .com address of the company mentioned in the e-mail.  The clickable link even appears to take you to the company’s website, when in fact, it is a fake website built to replicate the legitimate site.

Many of these people are professional criminals.  They have spent a lot of time in creating emails that look authentic.  Users need to review all emails requesting personal information carefully.  When reviewing your email remember that the “From Field” can be easily changed by the sender.  While it may look like it is coming from a .com you do business with, looks can be deceiving.  Also keep in mind that the phisher will go all out in trying to make their email look as legitimate as possible.  They will even copy logos or images from the official site to use in their emails.  Finally, they like to include a clickable link that the recipient can follow to conveniently update their information.
A great way to check the legitimacy of the link is to point at the link with your mouse. Then, look in the bottom left hand screen of your computer.  The actual website address to which you are being directed will show up for you to view.  It is a very quick and easy way to check if you are being directed to a legitimate site.

Finally, follow the golden rule.  Never, ever, click the links within the text of the e-mail, and always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted the e-mail, empty the trash box in your e-mail accounts as well. If you are truly concerned that you are missing an important notice regarding one of your accounts, then type the full URL address of the website into your browser.  At least then you can be confident that you are, in fact, being directed to the true and legitimate website.

Contibutor http://www.vrelinks.com