A thief in your PC

A software program enters a computer uninvited and unannounced, to spy on the web-surfing habits of the user and download email contacts. Another program hijacks a mobile phone to dial fee-based mobile services, the phone owner oblivious to what’s going on-until the bill comes in. yet another invades a home computer and uses it as a tool to steal something from a company’s database on the other side of the world.

Now, they’re coming without warning. Malicious turns 25 this year- has quietly changed in its origins, character and intent. The first computer virus, written by a high-school student in the US in 1982, simply copied itself and unleashed poetry on its target computers. Similarly, virtually all the early computer viruses during the 1980s were the creation of enthusiastic hackers whose primary intention was thrill-seeking rather that doing serious harm or earning wealth. But computer security specialists warn that computer viruses, worms, and Trojan horses- each with different tasks but all classified as malicious software, or mal ware-have become insidious and acquired new roles.  “We’re already starting to see a switch toward much more stealthy mal ware,” says Richard Ford, research professor in computer sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology in the US.

                                     “The threats (form insidious mal ware) are a reality, not just a possibility. Those who trying to use mal ware for financial in staying under the radar,”

                                                             Underground Economy

 In a perspective paper published in the US journal science last week, Ford and co-author Eugene Spafford, professor of computer science at Purdue University, have warned that the development of malware has become a supports an underground economy.

“If the viruses and worms of the past decade were the online equivalent of graffiti artists malware is now like criminals who wish to steal your wallet and forge your checks,” they wrote.

                   “Much of the mal wart today is designed to may facilitate financial gain for someone, somewhere,” says Sanjay Katkar, the chief technology officer of Quick Heal, an Indian company involved in developing anti-mal ware technology, mainly for homes and small and medium enterprises. “The nature of mal ware attacks is also changing.”

                Earlier there were mass attacks with a virus spreading across the continents. The last time this was expected to happen was in February 2006 when a virus named Kamasutra has threatened to disrupt computers. But it was detected several days ahead of its attack date, and a major outbreak was averted.

“ However, the malware of today  is increasingly silent, difficult to trace, and often picks on selected target computers,” says Katkar.

 Some security  researchers believe that data theft is a major emerging threat. “The data theft threat is real. The bad guys are learning fast, they are investing and building attack tools,” Cesar Cerrudo,the founder and CEO of Argeniss Information Security, a Buenos Aires-based company, and his colleague Esteban Martinez Fayo warned in a paper presented in March this year at a computer security conference in Amsterdam.

    “Data about people have more value than people think” Cerrudo and Fayo wrote in their paper. For instance, there might be organizations or individuals willing to pay for the addresses, mobile phone numbers, education details, and any other information that might be stored in a database.

MALWARE   MENACE

Virus:  A program designed to enter a computer to achieve a specific task- perhaps just introduce a harmless message or delete files or even reformat the hard disk.

Worm: A program designed to merely replicate and spread to other computers. A worm-virus hybrid may be used to deliver a virus. Such a hybrid would look at all email addresses in a computer and deliver the virus to those computers

Types of attacks

According to information security experts, it is no longer as difficult to write malware today as it would have been a few years ago. “There are now special tools available on the Internet for developing malware with a lot less effort than it would have taken in the late 1990s,” says Jagannath Patnaik, vice-president of sales at QuickHeal.

       A computer user may not even be aware when he or she becomes the target of malware. 

 

Get the Best out of Google

Google: We use it to search for articles, images or even to find the best bargains on the Internet. Whenever I see a computer with Google logo and the search box. You know something- you are missing out on load of goodies form the search engine mammoth with this basic Google page.

You can customize your Google page to do a whole lot of things and find information in a jiffy. This feature has been around for a number of year, but very few people use it. I will show you how can get the best out of Google in a few  simple steps.

First, get hold of a Google account. The best way to do this is to type www.google.com/ig on your browser and then click on sign in. you will be asked to sign up for a new account. Then you will be offered a selection of items which you can display on your home page. I suggest you take BBC and CNN you will always be the first to know of any news break anywhere in the world. If you are a technology freak try engadget, Slashdot or Wired. Macheads should choose. The Unofficial Apple Weblog, also known as TUAW. Of course, don’t forget to add your Gmail account on your customized home page. You have the option to hide the preview of your mails if you are wary of others seeing your massages. Also, when you use its labels facility. It’s much better than keeping emails in folders.

Google Reader

Next, try out the Google Reader and add it to your home page. This is basically a personalized reading list. It is your own online RSS reader. You can keep adding feeds that you can read at your leisure.

Google Apps

Google introduce something called Google Apps. It is expected to be a Microsoft Office killer. With Google Apps your company can get Google’s nifty Gmail with 10Gb of space, an online equivalent of Microsoft word and Excel. All this comes for just a fraction of the cost of Microsoft Office. The best part of Google Apps is that it can be accessed from any computer anywhere in the world. Plus you get your online calendar where you can keep a tab your appointments. Added to this is a simple web page creator. The cost of the entire Google package is around $5o a year.

Microsoft, too, has some thing called Microsoft Office Live, but I think Google beats it hollow because of its much better email service. But Google’s drawback is that it still dose not have anything that is a good as Microsoft’s Powerpoint. But these applications are not for those who are wary of storing their data in a server in some unknown country. The next things you must get hold of is Google’s Desktop search. It indexes your files on your computer and you will be able to find emails, pictures, music and videos in no time at all. It is imfunction that comes with Windows. Get it from www.desktop.google.com.

Gadgets

Google has also borrowed an original called Widgets which has been available in Macs for years. Google calls them Gadgets. My favourite ones are those that give the TV timings of HBO, Star Movies and zee cinema. There is also a pretty little flower that will give you a real kick if you look after well with a few mouse strokes daily. These gadgets are basically visual objects on the screen that can be manipulated with the mouse and keyboard. You will find loads Gadgets at www.desktop.google.com/plugins/.

Google notebook

Finally, get yourself Google Notebook. As you browse sites you just select portions of text and keep adding them to the notebook. Google Notebook lives in your browser you will not have to tear your hear trying to find where you kept a piece of information.