Best Practices to Avoid Spyware

Transcription

1 Best Practices to Avoid Spyware Sesame Webinar Series Steve McEvoy January 8 th, 2013

2 Goals To discuss technology in a way that might actually be useful to you in your practice Share ideas that you should be able to implement immediately Talk will be available to you online so you don t need to take notes Ask your questions to the moderator right when you are thinking about it

3 Agenda What is Spyware? What does it do? Why do they do it? How can I protect myself? What do I do if I get it?

4 Spyware Who has had their PC infected with Spyware before? How did you get infected? How did it get fixed (if at all)? How many just replaced the computer? I suspect this is why many of you signed up for this course

5 What is Spyware? Application(s) running on your PC that: Steal your private information Redirect your actions Seek some form of financial gain Seeks to Propagate itself Is Spyware a HIPAA violation if its on a work computer?

6 Is it a Virus? How is it Different from a Virus? Virus s tend to be malicious and seek to wreck your PC Honestly I think Spyware and Viruses are converging into one beast

7 How do they get in? You let them in They sucker you into doing something that lets them get installed (Phishing Scam).

8 AntiVirus Program If you had an AntiVirus program already, why didn t it/won't it stop it? Literally tens of thousands of spyware apps with new mutations every day Your application would need to be up to date and designed to watch accordingly Since you click on the OK to Install how is it supposed to know its not OK?

9 Signs of Spyware

10 Pop-Ups Signs of Spyware Fake Antivirus warning messages Default Web Page changed You surf to one URL, and get another New Toolbars have appeared in Browser New Applications are installed on PC Fast one day, and slow the next All sorts of unexplained abnormal behavior

11 Why do they do it? Fun Financial Gain Imagine the revenue from the Fake Antivirus Even if 1% fall for it 100,000 PCs infected 1,000 Owners pay fee of $40 $40,000 tax free (plus they have your CC#)

12 What can I do about it? Settings Software Self Control

13 Enable Windows Firewall

14 Enable UAC

15 Reset IE Security to Default

16 Install AntiMalware/Antivirus Program All in One programs like Norton 360 might be OK for home, but not great for business Too Restrictive and likely to mess up things that need work in your office Network Tend to slow a PC down a lot Look for something that is limited to Antivirus and Antimalware Maybe just update what you have

17 AntiMalware/Antivirus Program

18 AntiMalware/Antivirus Program Recommendations: No Clear Standout Free Microsoft Security Essentials Paid Most any of the large companies are OK I tend to use Symantec Endpoint Protection Should cost about $35 per PC

19 Safe Surfing This is by far the most important thing Surf Responsibly understand the risks and avoid the traps Avoid Phishing scams Use Business PCs ONLY for business use Facebook and other personal sites are rife with Spyware links Close PopUps or suspicious pages with the X or Alt F4, never click in the ad

20 The Myth that Mac s are Perfect There are probably 100 PCs for each Mac, so hackers spend their time where the return will be greatest Mac s have a good OS that helps prevent this If you run Windows on your Mac, you have all the same issues as if it was a Dell

21 Defend at your Firewall At your home or office, you will have a device called a Firewall/Router that links you to the Internet. Firewall Office Network

22 Firewall Monitoring Watches all the Traffic flowing through it: Scans for Viruses Blocks executable attachments Filters out SPAM Blocks Websites by Category No Social Networking websites Checks the URL you are requesting isn t known to be bad from a community managed list

23 Smart Firewall Not a DIY Project to Implement I ve had good success with the Watchguard XTM-25 Firewall About $450 with a 1 yr Subscription $150 per year for the Subscriptons

24 What to do if Infected? Act quickly Maybe even power down until help arrives Use Cleanup Tools None are perfect each gets about 90% A few Free suggestions: MalwareBytes ComboFix (nuclear weapon approach) Have a professional Help MyCleanPC is a crock

25 Will it ever be the same? Most of the time the truth is No It can be healed, but since they can have tweaked anything they want, nearly impossible to restore it all The PC Hardware isn t wrecked, but the Windows Software and your Applications may be. These can be reloaded from Scratch and all will be well again, but this takes time ($$)

26 Will it ever be the same? If a cleanup/reload could cost $600, should I just replace the PC? Consider that even a new PC needs all your apps installed and configured Maybe replace if the PC was already on its last legs

27 Plan Ahead Consider making an Imaged based backup of each PC once per month. If something screws up the PC, you can quickly restore the entire PC back to the exact way it was. Acronis Workstation costs about $85 per PC A portable USB hard drive costs about $100 A backup will take about an hour and can be schedule to happen on weekends

28 MME s Blog blog.mmeconsulting.com

29 AAO Technology Blog AAOTechBlog.com

30 Thank You! Presentation Online at See you at the Dolphin Users Meeting or AAO in Philly!