What makes a virus and how is it found

Hey everyone! One of the things I struggled with when I first started learning about computers was, what makes a virus, and how does an antivirus know them when it sees them. It still is very hard to understand some of them! especially because there are new and more sophisticated ones being created every day. A virus is different to an exploit, an exploit is when someone finds a weakness or a hole in a legitimate program or system that allows them to gain control of of the system. However both rely on a system being kept up to date for protection.

Viruses are just another program really, they are lines of code that are created to perform a task, unfortunately the task is mostly an undesirable one, and the program that is the virus, is snuck onto your device with out your permission. Virus is a very broad term, there are many different types, Malware, Spyware, Trojan, Rootkits, Worms, but for the purpose of this blog we will keep referring to them by the blanket term of virus. Some viruses are so ingrained in a system, that once the system starts, they can not be detected, these can only be detected by having your hard drive scanned by another PC while it is not running. Rootkits are usually detected by running a scan as your computer is booting up. Once found, a virus is either blocked, quarantined, or deleted.

So how does an antivirus know a virus when it sees it? well antivirus programs scan your system looking for "lines of code" or patterns or behaviors, certain keywords, and it may also have a list of suspect web domains on its list to watch for. 

So the bad news to all this! Unfortunately the antivirus program needs to know what its looking for. So a virus needs to be discovered, analyzed, then either a "fix" created or the virus "signature" distributed to relevant need to know companies.

Antivirus companies have things called "honey pots" these are groups of devices set strategically around the Internet, and their main purpose is to catch everything that's going!. Once caught, it is a race against the clock to to get the signature out there so the virus can be detected and stopped. This is the reason why it is absolutely imperative that you keep your antivirus updated daily if possible, that way it will receive the latest virus signatures.

 It is often thought that once your antivirus subscription or license expires, that you are left unprotected, this is not entirely true, you still have all the virus signatures that you have received up until this point. Your system will just stop receiving latest updates for new viruses.

If you have a look at a lot of paid verses unpaid antivirus products, the difference usually isn't in the virus updates, it may be in the form of extra Malware protection, if the unpaid version doesn't have it (some do, some don't) often you are paying for extra services and trimmings like customer support, password systems, sandbox's, key scramblers etc. I am in no way saying don't buy an antivirus, but make sure you know what extra you are getting for your money.

I hope this has helped you understand a little bit more how it all works.

Stop annoying startup programs and Mac update

Hi All, for those that don't follow me on social media, I have recently undergone shoulder surgery, and have one arm in a sling for a while, hence the lack of a post last week. I will be keeping things short for a few weeks, as typing is very frustrating with one hand!.

I hope you were all successful with your computer clean out are enjoying faster PCs as a result. A request I have had, is to show how to stop programs starting when you boot up your computer, well it just so happens that the program we used to clean out the PC, CCleaner, has the function to do this as well. So if you have not been following along, go back and read the instructions on downloading CCleaner in "Free Mac Antivirus and Pt 2 of our PC Cleanup".

Open CCleaner and on the left side of the window you will see your options available to do, select the "Tools" option, Then slightly to the right of this you will now see 4 more options select the "startup" tab. A list will be populated of all the programs, and the option to Enable, Disable or Delete a program. The programs that are currently starting on bootup are in bolder print than the ones that aren't. It is simply a matter of clicking on a program to highlight it, and then selecting which of the three options you want to apply to that program.

I suggest, unless you are very confident with what you are doing that you go slowly here and disable only one program at a time. That way you will know which program to re-enable if you cause something to stop working. It would be a good idea to write down the name of the program as you disable it, in case you forget which one it was. If you are not sure which program on the list belongs to the program you wish to stop, take your time and carefully read through the list, and just look for a word that is in the name of the program, or sometimes it may even be the company that made the program. In this case you may have to let the program run and have a look around once it is open, or a good old "Google Search" will soon show you who made it.

Once you have disabled a program you can close out of CCleaner and either restart your computer straight away, or just wait till next time, to make sure everything is OK. You can then repeat the process again if you have more programs you wish to stop. Windows does have a way of doing this as well obviously, but it is not as simple as this way.

One quick tip before we go, there is a new IOS update for your Apple devices  to 10.7.4, it is a very important update, but beware it is a very large download and if you have a few Macs, may really eat into your download limit. Now I have heard  the trick here is that if you update through Itunes, you get the whole lot, but if you select to do "over the air updates" in your settings, it only updates the bits you need! and is much smaller.

What would you like to learn?

The Final Step in a Clean, Fast PC

Ok so we have removed all your unwanted programs, we have cleaned all the bits and pieces away with the disc cleaners, there is two things left to do.

This next step is a controversial one amongst computer people, a lot say it should never be done, but the proof is in the pudding, and it makes logical sense that it should be done. It is called a "registry clean", now the registry is not a place to be playing around in, and normally I would not even go there in this kind of situation, but CCleaner has the function built into it, and it is very easy and safe to use.

Open up your CCleaner program that we used last week, and on the left hand side you will see a crumbling cube with "Registry" written under it. Click on this and when the next screen opens up, on the bottom left you will see the "scan for issues button", select this, and let it scan. Once the scan is complete, a list of all the issues will be presented and a "fix selected issues" button will be on the lower right of the screen, click on this and you will be presented with a box asking if you want to "back up changes to the registry", say yes to this and accept the default place for the backup to be stored by clicking "save". One quick note here, all the issues listed may be selected already or you may need to select them all, before you press fix selected issues. Just do this by ticking the "problems" box at the top of the list.
Click on the "fix all selected issues" tab and let CCleaner do its thing, then close out of the program.

Once this is complete, go back to your windows menu by click on your start button- then "all programs"- then "accessories" - then "system tools" - then "disc defragmenter". Open the defragmenter program, and you will see an analyse and a defragment button, press the defragment button, and the next window will have a list of your drives, select your "C" drive and then "defragment disc".

If this has not been done for a long time this may take hours to defragment the disc, if you are on a later system, it has probably been done recently as part of the automated process. It is OK to use your PC while the defragment is running, but I prefer to let it do its thing uninterrupted, so you may even choose to start the process running before you go to bed. You can turn your screen off and leave your PC run. When it is run just close all the windows or reports that are open and restart your PC.

Congratulations you should now have a clean, efficient, speedy little computer again. This is a task that is good to carry out once every 1-2 months depending on how much you use your PC and how much time you spend online. The registry cleaner needs only to be done once or twice a year depending if you are regularly adding and removing a lot of programs or files and need the registry cleaned of their records.

I hope this has been explained clearly enough and it has been a trouble free process for you, any issues please email me and I will do my best to sort them for you.