One of the first things i do in explorer is enable the showing of extensions because nothing drives me crazier then not knowing what format a file is (weird quirk of Bort). So i won’t be opening pdf.exe files. I try to avoid new software whenever possible, but i am surprised windows defender doesn’t have a scan file option in explorer, avast and avg had it when i used them. I currently only use windows defender, do i need supplemental anti virus software?
Also when i reinstall windows i turn indexing off and disable the service, and unindex everything, and occasionally check that it has not re enabled itself (it does 2-3 times, a hidden “feature” in windows, only 1 reactivation in windows 8 typically). I also have an SSD so no defragmentation. I use a third party backup software which only runs when the USB drive is plugged in, a few times a month. I am starting to think the person who said a failed or problem update might be the culprit, i have no way to figure out if this is the case though.
I use firefox, can viruses come from simply visiting websites, i often navigate to new sites i find with google.
Yeah, even in an ideal world, it would never be completely linear, but I was trying to keep things simple. I get to see both good design and bad, because I use Windows 7 at work, where the IT settings are about as ridiculous as it can get. I used to like Windows 7 when I had it on my laptop. I use Ubuntu exclusively at home. Linux is generally well designed, especially from a security stand-point, but some of the Ubuntu design choices still baffle me at times. And, I use Android on my phone. That would be alright, if I could choose which of the 20 permissions that an app is asking for to grant to it, rather than having to go all-or-nothing. Why does a game app need permission to access my Contacts? |(
Just a further comment on my personal & work data storage. On my home files, I now have a computer I built with a hot swap bay. I use a a WD 1 terabyte drive & a 500gb (laptop drives) that I put in to back up my photos and videos after I have downloaded them off the cameras or phones. Once they are backed up, I simply pull the drive out and store it in pelican case stored inside a 30 min fire resistant safe.
I also have a yearly backup I do on USB external drives that are stored in one of those fire resistant safes. I mainly don’t want to loose music, and videos and pics of the family. I also do sorta the same thing at work. But at work I do a daily back up on thumb drives. Since it is mostly Word, and Excel files a simple 32gb usb thumb drive is more than enough. I have 2 and rotate them out. The thumb drives are encrypted and one stays at work (in a fire resistant safe, and the other stays on my keychain. Most I could possibly loose is about a days worth of work if I was being lazy one day.
I do all of this because I lost some very important family photos and videos due to fire. I have also lost work files due to these fools who like to hack or whatever their agenda is. So now, I try my best to keep that from happening.
Anyway, I thought I would share that with yall thinking maybe it could help some of you out or give you a idea that may work for your application.
Keeping the HD out of the PC COULD help keep the NSA or some hacker from snooping through it. I don’t want some creep looking at pictures of my kids swimming at the pool. I know I am paranoid, but there are some looney people out there.
I wasn’t trying to write a tutorial, but thanks. In the list of settings, if it says “Hide…”, I turn if OFF, if it says “Show…”, I turn it ON. To do otherwise would be to imply a faith in Microsoft (generically any 3rd party) which can never be warranted.
Bort, I wish you’d stop referring to the smart things you do as “quirks”… If more Users were thusly “quirky”, we’d have a lot more time for enjoyable conversations instead of “what’s the latest malware up to” discussions.
Thanks for the compliment, i refer to them as quirks because i have never met anyone much like Bort, and it may be vanity but i’d like to think if more people were like Bort the world would be a different (and more rational) place.
I almost exclusively run Win7, Win8, and Linux virtual machines on my Win7 physical box. Any important files I download or work on in the VM’s are copied to the physical box using shared drives. So at any point in time I have my important files in 2 separate environments.
I copy the VM’s to another mounted drive on my pc every several days as backup. Then every 2 weeks I clone the image of my C drive to the other mounted drive and also image the C drive to a separate external drive which I leave at work. The external drive is a laptop HD in an enclosure which is why it’s imaged rather than cloned. I could of course clone it and use brackets to mount the laptop drive in a desktop if needed.
Really important files are also uploaded to Google Drive after I encrypting them.
Although it takes a little work I always have almost all my important files in multiple locations and ability to recover everything including the operating system if my HD goes bad.
If my VM is ever held for ransom I can blow it away by restoring one stored elsewhere.
Xprivacy. It’s a module for the xposed framework. Every time whatever app wants to listen to your phone calls or read your text message, Xprivacy pops up a box asking you to allow or deny the action.
And because it would break the app to deny, Xprivacy just feeds random data instead, the app thinks it’s getting good data and doesn’t crash.
And then AFWall+ prevents the app from reaching the Internet.
That leads to a solution form the animal kingdom, safety in numbers
In addition the clown was actually imaginary 8)
And finally its very gratifying that my original signature is fondly remembered
Cryptolocker was recently broken by some security folks… they forced the bad guys to switch control servers and when they did they intercepted their keylist file. The result is the free “decryptolocker” service. You upload them an encrypted file, they match it to the key list, and send you back a restoration program.
BTW, in England over 3% of all computer users in the country paid the cyrptolocker ransom.
- never opening un-trusted websites and never opening email attachments from unknown senders or suspicious email subjects,
- along with keeping your AV and blockers up to date,
and most important keeping ALL your files copied to an external drive in a safe. (i back up all my files at the end of every month by copying my Documents drive to an identical external drive, and any important files i use SafeHouse 256bit Volume encryption program to protect them or an entire second Hard-drive, ( meaning a malware encrypter executable can not get access to the locked encrypted folder or Hard-drive on your computer of protected files to encrypt a second time.
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