Whenever you install a new piece of software, or visit a web site you are not sure about there’s often a nagging doubt at the back of your mind; what if something goes wrong? Of course most of the time nothing untoward happens but if you really want to protect your PC form nasties or dodgy software take a look at Sandibox. It’s a clever freeware utility that creates software ‘sandbox’, basically a safe place for you to install and test new software, run existing programs, or surf the web and if something bad occurs it cannot affect your system, or damage files on your PC. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Internet | No Comments »
I’ve finally started making a few changes to my Windows Vista setup. One of the most annoying recurring problems I’ve had is that User Account Control, which is designed to protect your computer from unauthorized changes isn’t very intelligent and doesn’t learn from past behaviour. So, if you will constantly have to approve certain programs.
I’ve decided to turn User Account Control off. Yes, there’s a risk that I might be leaving my machine vulnerable but I’m pretty careful so I’m confident I’ll be ok. Disabling UAC is pretty easy: Read More»
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Microsoft has released a special security patch today (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-017) to protect your computer against the Animated Cursor vulnerability first discovered a few weeks ago. Apparently, Microsoft decided that this was important enough to break their normal second Tuesday of the month patch release cycle to get this patch on computers.
According to the Determina security web site that first discovered the issue, “As Microsoft has pointed out, any web page, email or content that can load an animated cursor can allow an attacker to take advantage of the vulnerability and run arbitrary code on the users system.†Read More»
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In my last article I showed you how you can protect your computer against anonymous user account attacks by turning on account logon auditing so you could see when someone attempts to remotely logon to your account. Now I am going to help your increase your level of protection with the Account Lockout Policy.
Creating an Account Lockout Policy will protect your account by limiting the number of time a remote application or attacker can try to guess your password. This works by automatically locking out your account after a designated number of incorrect passwords were entered. Your account will remain locked out for a designated period of time before it is automatically unlocked and it can be logged into again. This provides a valuable addition to your account security because it can render brute force password attacks useless. If you have your lockout threshold set to 4 bad attempts and the lockout duration to 15 minutes, an attacker can try to guess your password a maximum of 16 times per hour. Read More»
Posted in Windows Vista | No Comments »
February 03, 2007 by
Jason
Many people leave their PCs on all of the time. That often means dozens of open windows, and information that hasn’t been saved as recently as possible. There’s nothing worse than going back to your PC and seeing a message that says “Windows recently downloaded and installed an important security update to help protect your computer. This update required an automatic restart.” Or, while you are working, you may grow tired of the nagging little pop-up window with a countdown that tries to reboot your computer in 15 seconds. A simple edit to the system Registry will end this annoyance and save you from losing potentially hours of work if a reboot occurs when you aren’t there to prevent it. Read More»
Posted in Windows XP | No Comments »
