How Safe Is Your Browser? – Test Your Browser’s Security With Scanit

You can load up your Internet Browser with every security add-on you like, but if the base Browser has even one security hole – you’re still at risk.

You can test your currently installed Browser for security holes, by taking the free Browser Security test offered by Scanit, a technology company which provides services ranging from high-tech penetration testing over application source code review, risk assessments and management-level security audits, to security courses.

The test is fairly comprehensive and supports Internet Explorer, Mozilla Browsers (Firefox), and Opera. Additional components check for vulnerabilities in selected plug-ins, including Flash and QuickTime.

To test your Browser go to Browser Security test, and follow the simple instructions.

Happily, my results showed no vulnerabilities.

An additional test, (recently spotlighted here), focusing on selected security holes in both the Browser, and Browser plug-ins, is available with BrowserCheck, a free tool from Qualys.

As an added security measure, take BrowserCheck for a test drive. According to available information, all major Windows web browsers are supported.

BrowserCheck is itself a plug-in, and like most plug-ins, it’s very easy to install. Simply visit the Qualys site; install the plug-in, and you’re all set.

My friends over at the TTC Shelbyville – Technical Blog (Tennessee Technology Center at Shelbyville, Tennessee), recently posted an article on Scanit’s Browser Security test, which prompted me to do likewise. Thanks guys.

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Nude Pics Of Your Wife/Girlfriend Attached – Click Here

We’ve all heard it – “Have any nude pictures of your wife? “Want to buy some?” It’s an old joke, but the Internet has given the “ Want to buy some?”, new meaning.

Straight from the headlines here in Canada – Judge temporarily off bench over online sex photos. Since this women is an Associate Chief Justice, I suppose the idea that one could view her (absent her clothes), on the Internet, makes this a titillating newsworthy event. I won’t get into the whole story here, but there’s a 67 Million dollar lawsuit involved.

In the broader sense though, it’s not much of a story. The particulars in this case may be unusual, to some extent, but the concept certainly isn’t. Google –  “pics of your wife”, and be prepared for 262,000,000 links. I must admit, I was taken aback with the sheer volume of the results. It seems as if nude wife pictures has a certain cachet!

It’s no surprise then, that Cyber-crooks continue to use the “pictures of your wife” social engineering email hook, to entice potential victims to click on an email containing a link to that all time spamming champion – Canadian Pharmacy, which is (no surprise here), controlled by a Russian botnet.

So, what would you have done if you had received the following email in your inbox this morning? Would you have been curious enough to read the email shown below – including clicking on the enclosed .jpeg.

Hello,

I apologize for my frankness. I’m sorry for not being able to speak to you in person, but I can only talk to you via email and I feel obliged to notify you to open your eyes, you are being betrayed.

I know it is difficult to prove, but every picture tells a story, I’ll send you these pictures so that you can see it with your own eyes. Take care…a big hug

From a good friend who is very fond of you

View photos here

As part of what I do, I occasionally follow emails like this all the way down the trail. And, in this case, I ran both the attached .jpeg, and the site, (before opening either one), through VTzilla, an Internet Browser malware checking add-on. The initial 7 engine scan showed the site to be safe. A follow-up scan with all 43 engines produced the same result – a safe site.

OK, that was cool – Firefox, Google Safebrowsing, Opera, Paretologic, Phistank, and TRUSTe, amongst others, gave this site a clean bill of health.  So, I should have felt confident in opening this site, right? Well, not quite. There was one problem – I KNOW this is an unsafe site!

On attempting to open the site though, WOT, another Internet Browser security add-0n, intercepted the connection and overlaid the following warning.

Clicking on the “View rating details” button, gave me the following site information.

Here’s the point of all this:

Do NOT open titillating, or salacious emails, no matter how tempting.

Do NOT trust to a single Browser security add-on to protect you on the Internet. Any statement to the contrary is sheer BS. No such single tool exists.

I encourage you to add WOT to your Browser. For more information on this critical add-on please read – Safe, Secure Browsing, with Free WOT Browser Add-on, on this site.

For a listing of additional Browser add-ons, please read – An IT Professional’s Must Have Firefox and Chrome Add-ons, on this site.

In the final analysis, in this particular case, no harm was done. I can of course, look forward to a barrage of spam email, directed at my honeypot email account, from this botnet.

I should point out however, that of the five emails (with the heading “Your wife’s pics”), I’ve tested in the last six months, three downloaded Trojans to my test machine.

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Download a Cornucopia of Freeware Applications

If I sum totaled all the applications I’ve tested since the early 1990’s, I suspect, the number is now in the thousands. Over those years, some applications have managed to stand out, while others just vanished beneath the wave of new and more creative applications.

The applications listed below have riding out the storm of new competitors, and have developed a strong, loyal following, based on their reliability and functionality.

Take a look at the following recommended free downloads that will help you communicate, improve your photos, have some fun, and manage and protect your system.

Note: Please read the EULA of each application that you have chosen to install – it’s just common sense. To download a free tool that will help you in highlighting critical areas in a EULA, checkout “Download EULAlyzer – Let it Read the EULA for You“, on this site.

Process those words:

OpenOffice

OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages, and works on all common computers.

It stores all your data in an international open standard format, and can also read and write files from other common office software packages, including Microsoft Word.

AbiWord

AbiWord is a free, multilingual, light weight word processing program, similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

WordWeb

WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary, for Windows, that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia.

Manipulate and correct your pics – put them online:

FastStone Image Viewer

This is one of my favorite photo applications, with good reason. It’s not just a viewer, but an image browser, converter, and an editor as well. You’ll find the interface intuitive and very easy to use.

This program is loaded with features including, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, lossless JPEG transformation, drop shadow effects, image frames, scanner support, histogram and much more.

IrfanView

With IrfanView you can fix and enhance digital photos including resizing, cropping, correcting red eye, flipping, and rotating. As well, you can perform a wide variety of image adjustments, including brightness, contrast, and applying special effects such as sharpen and blur.

I have been using this neat little program (every day), for years and with each new release it just keeps getting better.

Google Picasa

Free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.

Play those tunes:

Audacity

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Definitely the best of breed.

iTunes

According to Apple this is the world’s best digital music jukebox. Download music, TV shows, movies, and more. Frankly, I’m not a big fan, but…..

Winamp

A multimedia player that supports numerous audio and video formats. It also plays streamed video and audio content, live and recorded, authored worldwide.

Watch your fav videos:

Miro

Miro is a free application for channels of internet video (also known as ‘video podcasts and video rss). Miro is designed to be easy to use and to give you an elegant full screen viewing experience.

VLC

A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Free FLV Converter

This free software let you search YouTube and dailyMotion videos without opening your browser and you can even watch the videos using the built-in video player.

Free Video to iPhone Converter

Convert video files to Apple iPhone MP4 video format. Convert the whole movie, or select a partition from the movie to convert (trim video).

iPod Video Converter

Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and complete way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video.

Better browsing:

FireFox

FireFox includes tons of useful features such as tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, a built-in RSS reader and a huge library of extensions developed by thousand of developers.

Opera

Opera 10.50 has you flying through Web pages with never-before-seen speed, and surfing with advanced features that make it easy to get the most from the Web.

Web of Trust (WOT)

WOT is a free Internet Browser add-on (my personal favorite), that has established an impressive 4.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET. WOT tests web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams, helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

Protect your system:

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware

The free version of this speed demon (it’s faster at scanning than any anti-malware program I’ve tested in the last 2 years), is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their computers. I run Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware every day, as a secondary malware scanner.

SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition

The free version of this award winning program, is used by millions of people worldwide to protect their computers. And why not? SUPERAntiSpyware is well known for its high malware detection rate.

A simple, intuitive, and easy to use interface makes SUPERAntiSpyware straightforward to setup, customize, and run, for both less experienced and expert users alike.

Spyware Terminator

Spyware Terminator excels in strong active protection against know and unknown threats. If anything, I find it perhaps a little overly aggressive. On the other hand, better this than the alternative. This application is the single most downloaded security application through my site, with better than 40,000 downloads.

PC Tools Firewall

If you are a casual computer user, PC Tools Firewall is definitely worth considering as a new Firewall installation, or as a replacement for a current Firewall that is not meeting your expectations.

HiJackFree

If you are an experienced/advanced computer user, and you’re looking for a program to strengthen your anti-malware resources, then HiJackFree is one that’s worth taking a look at. This free application, from EMSI Software, offers a potent layer of additional protection to add to your major anti-malware programs.

The program operates as a detailed system analysis tool that can help you in the detection and removal of Hijackers, Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Worms, and other malware. It doesn’t offer live protection but instead, it examines your system, determines if it’s been infected, and then allows you to eradicate the malware.

Trinity Rescue Kit

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk

This rescue CD can scan your boot sector, and your Hard Drives from the outside looking in. Malware doesn’t have a chance to hide if it’s not running. It’s become the first step I now use when I’m dealing with an infected machine.

ThreatFire

ThreatFire blocks mal-ware, including zero-day threats, by analyzing program behavior and it does a stellar job. Again, this is one of the security applications that forms part of my front line defenses. I have found it to have high success rate at blocking mal-ware based on analysis of behavior. Highly recommend this one!

Web of Trust (WOT)

WOT is a free Internet Browser add-on (my personal favorite), that has established an impressive 4.5/5.0 star user rating on CNET. WOT tests web sites you are visiting for spyware, spam, viruses, browser exploits, unreliable online shops, phishing, and online scams, helping you avoid unsafe web sites.

SnoopFree Privacy Shield

SnoopFree Privacy Shield is a powerful application that guards your keyboard, screen and open windows from all spy software. I have been using this application for quite some time, and I have been amazed at the number of programs that have requested access to my keyboard and screen. In particular, programs that I am in the process of installing.

If you’re serious about privacy, this is a must have addition to your security toolbox.

Staying in touch:

Skype

Skype has become my preferred method of contact. I use the free Skype video calling feature, dozens of times a day to speak with contacts worldwide.

In its basic form, Skype is a free communication package, using proprietary code, which allows users to make free computer to computer calls, including video calls, across the globe. As well, there are a bundle of additional features, that can be purchased at a low cost, which will expand the application’s functionality.

Windows Live messenger

The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.

Pidgin

A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.

Trillian

A fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.

System Tools:

CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system – allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it’s fast; normally taking less than a second to run.

Glary Utilities

Glary Utilities, a free all-in-one utility, is a terrific collection of system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC. Personal experience with this application for years, has convinced me that a typical user can really benefit by having this application on their system.

With this free program you can tweak, repair, optimize and improve your system’s performance; and its ease of operation makes it ideal for less experienced users.

WinPatrol

Do you want to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer? Then WinPatrol is the program for you. With WinPatrol, in your system tray, you can monitor system areas that are often changed by malicious programs.

You can monitor your startup programs and services, cookies and current tasks. Should you need to, WinPatrol allows you to terminate processes and enable, or disable, startup programs. There are additional features that make WinPatrol a very powerful addition to your security applications.

Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller is a superior program to uninstall programs from your computer. This free program with its advanced and fast algorithm scans before, and after you uninstall an application.

After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over (those “orphaned” registry entries we talked about earlier), on your computer. This feature is a definite plus.

Autoruns

This free utility has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, in my view, and shows you what programs are configured to run during system boot up or login, and the order Windows processes them. These programs will include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys.

You can configure Autoruns to show additional locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and more. Autoruns goes considerably beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows.

Regseeker

The longer you use Windows, the more cluttered your registry can become, especially if you regularly install and uninstall software. Many applications, on being uninstalled, leave behind “orphan” registry entries. They don’t remove all traces of themselves; causing problems such as sluggish performance, system lockups, or a bloated registry that takes longer to load on startup.

With the click of a button, Regseeker will scan your registry for these fragmented files, and safely remove them.

Recommended for advanced users only.

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