WolfHawke’s Security Suite
[Version 1.4 | Updated: 2008-03-09]

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The Wood Door

	WolfHawke’s Wood Door
	Mozilla Firefox Web Browser Zone Labs Zone Alarm Firewall Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus Free SpyBot Search and Destroy Windows Defender

So what does this “wood door” look like on an average computer? In my humble view a wood door consists of five components.

1. Common Sense

Some security gurus may assume this as a key component of security, but in my humble experience common sense is rarely sensible and even less common. Here are some “common sense” practices regarding the internet.

• Don’t download and install programs willy-nilly from the internet. And don’t let your kids do it either, no matter what their friends say about the security of the program. Do your research first. Google is a great resource.
   
• Don’t visit sites which crack/hack commercial programs or offer you serial numbers for such programs. More likely than not you’ll end up with a virus or some such thing.
   
• Make sure you close your web browser and e-mail program when you’re done with them.
   
• Don’t use Microsoft Internet Explorer (that includes IE7). It’s known to have more holes than a busted screen door on a dilapidated house. And no matter how hard Microsoft tries to stuff the holes, new ones always pop up. Use another browser, like Firefox, Opera, or Netscape Navigator, instead.
   
• Regularly clean your browser cache.
   
• Supervise your kids when they surf the internet.
   
• Avoid using unencrypted Wireless Networks. You can lock your door as tight as you like, but if you blow a hole in the side of your house, it doesn’t really help at all. Unsecured wireless networks can be such a hole, especially if you haven’t configured your computer correctly. See below for more information on that.

And here are some common sense measures regarding your physical computer itself.

• Password protect your user account (see point 2 for more information).
   
• Don’t leave programs or files open that you don’t want people to see.
   
• Make sure your screen saver pops on when you leave for short periods of time so that what’s on the screen is obscured from people walking by.
   
• Save your work frequently.
   
• Don’t allow friends or neighbors on your computer without you being in the room with them.
   
• Keep your machine in a place where you (or your spouse) can keep an eye on it.
   

2. Using Passwords Correctly

This is one of the things that we do least well. Most people (including me) use standard words for their passwords. Okay, that’s fine. I have one general password that I use for stuff that’s not important, like my customized Yahoo! home page. Who cares about what’s stored there and if people get in and sniff around?

However, there are some places you don’t want an easy-to-guess password to be visible. These would be, among other things, your e-mail account, your computer login password, your on-line bank or credit card accounts’ passwords and any other areas that you don’t necessarily want a thief to log in.

So how do you pick a “good” password? Generally the longer the password is the better. If you’re running Windows you can come up with an insanely long one (15-20 characters), which may be hard to type in but will give you all the security you need. On the internet, generally 12 characters is the limit, so come up with something about 10 characters long.

Now, here are some thoughts regarding what to pick:

• Make sure each password contains upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters (e.g. ! @ # $ % ^ or _).
   
• Change the spelling or replace letters with numbers. For example, if you choose ohappyday as your password, you could make it more secure by typing it as follows: 0_Happy_Day. Or eatatjoes could come out as Eat@J03'5. Use your imagination.
   
• Try to use something that you can easily remember, but that other people won’t associate with you. For example, if your dog’s name is Bud, don’t make your password MyD0g=Bud. This may follow the rule above, but if anyone knows you they may be able to guess this. Also don’t use your birth date, those of your significant other, your children, your pets, your parents, or mix and match days, months, and years from them. These are obvious places for a hacker to start. Again, use common sense (see point 1).
   
• If you’re multi-lingual, try making mixed-language passwords or spell your password as it would be pronounced phonetically in another language (e.g. thatIstG00t or SacreBlue).

3. Good Anti-Virus Software

This is where many people fail. They go out to Staples and buy Norton or McAfee or some such “security suite” and then are shocked when their computer implodes because of viruses and what not. The big anti-virus companies like Symantec and McAfee are suffering from the same problem that Microsoft is: they’re big, they’re popular, and their internal workings are well known to hackers and virus-smiths. Also, they’re really slow in updating their virus definitions and they cost money. However, there are plenty of good products that are inexpensive and not one of the “big guns”. Most anti-virus software that is any good today runs about $40 USD for a box purchase with around $30 USD per year for updates. If you want a free anti-virus product for your home-use machine , the only one I can recommend is the following:

AVG Anti-Virus FREE
[http://free.grisoft.com]

The beauty of Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus Free is that it is a great solution for those who don’t want to pay for their computer protection. As with most things, the free version has certain limitations on the program, such as only being able to schedule one daily scan of your computer. It also only allows for a single update per day. However, it features an on-demand scan capability and frequent virus updates. Also, new threats are analyzed and up for update in less than 24 hours.

AVG will catch files that are infected with it’s constant background monitoring, but to really clean things up, you’ll need to do a full system scan. For those who aren’t using their machines for commercial purposes (or want some quick-and-dirty protection until they can buy something better), this is a great solution.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to purchase Anti-Virus software, I would recommend the following:

Eset’s NOD32
[http://www.eset.com]

While I myself have little to no experience with this package, several of my friends have been praising it as the next great thing in anti-virus tech. It has daily updates, and has a very small resource consumption, in contrast to most other kinds of AV software. It costs $39.00 USD for a single license and can be downloaded from their website. It does a great job of protecting your machine.

In conclusion to this section I want to say a word to all you business owners: please buy your anti-virus software! You do tend to have more money than the average home-computer user and if you get your anti-virus software from Grisoft, then you won’t pay too much for it and you will support the private citizens and inherit a warm, fuzzy feeling of having done something right that should get you through the cold winter months.

For more information on the power and price of anti-virus software, take a look at the Anti-Virus Software Review 2007.

4. A Decent Firewall

Firewalls are one of those things that many common users don’t understand. To put it simply: a firewall is like having burglar bars on all your windows and triple locks on your front door. It makes it a whole lot harder for the bad guys to get in.

If you’re running DSL or Cable internet, nowadays you’ll probably have a router hooked in there somewhere with some pretty good firewall software that’s usually configured well enough by default to keep out the casual eavesdropper and you can skip the rest of this section.

However, if your modem is plugged directly into your PC (or Mac) with a USB cable or you dial up to the internet, you need to make sure you’ve got a software firewall running. Windows Firewall is decent and most average users will be kept safe by it, but it is still more of a screen door, because it has a “software switch”, which allows other, more sophisticated firewalls to turn it off. For those who want to look at a whole number of software-based firewalls visit http://www.hackfix.org/software/firewall.html. For a comparison of how these firewalls do in an independent test, visit http://www.matousec.com/projects/windows-personal-firewall-analysis/leak-tests-results.php.

Zone Labs Zone Alarm
[http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en&lid=nav_za]

I have been using Zone Alarm for the past six years and I love it. It is one of the most powerful software-based firewalls available on the market and there is a free version, which is more limited than the Pro version, but decent for an average user. There are two downsides to Zone Alarm, though. The first is that to keep it running correctly you do have to have some computer savvy, but the interface is quite intuitive and it is easy to learn how to run the program. Secondly, Zone Alarm and Avast! don’t like each other for some reason. If you decide to run Avast!, don’t run Zone Alarm. If you want to run Zone Alarm, run AVG as your anti-virus software.

Comodo Firewall Pro
[http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com]

For those who want maximum protection of their computer without paying anything, the currently top-rated firewall is Commodo Firewall Pro. The company promises to keep it free as long as possible. I’m going to be testing it out for a while to see how much work it is to set up and whatnot, but from all accounts, it’s not the most user-friendly firewall on the planet. If you have some computer knowledge, I’d recommend this one, to you.

So, you may ask, does my computer (or router) have an open back door? If you want to find out, visit Gibson Research Corporation’s ShieldsUP! site (http://www.grc.com then scroll down and click on the ShieldsUP! link). This site is great for explaining security holes and how to plug them and the nice thing is that it’s written in pretty clear English so a normal computer user can understand most of it.

5. Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware is one of those boogeymen in the computer world that infests your machine, tells other people about your living habits and slows things down but usually isn’t very malicious otherwise. Besides running at least one of the three programs listed below, you can avoid Spyware by simply not using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Most Spyware sneaks in through that and the rest makes its way into your machine from downloaded file-sharing programs, like KaZaa or Morpheus. So, if you avoid these things you’ll have less Spyware to deal with than most other people.

On the other hand, it’s good to have some utilities on hand for cleaning up your computer regularly (daily).

SpyBot Search and Destroy
[http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html]

This is my personal preference for Spyware cleanup. It can be scheduled to run daily, update itself, as well as block known Spyware from getting into your machine. It’s free (though a donation is requested for continued use) and it does a good job of generally keeping your machine clean.

Lavasoft AdAware Personal SE
[http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php]

This is a great program to be used in tandem with SpyBot. The programs don’t like each other much (as rivals won’t), but each one catches things that the other one doesn’t. The downside with this program is that it can’t run itself like SpyBot can. You have to run it every time and sit in front of the computer while it runs and tell it what to erase and what to retain. But, as second fiddle and a weekly run (in contrast to SpyBot’s daily run), it’s a decent program.

Microsoft Defender
[http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx]

For once Microsoft is ahead of the curve with Spyware prevention. After all, they wrote Windows and so they know its issues. Their anti-Spyware program is one of the best systems to use to keep your machine clean. You can get it from Microsoft’s web site, but be aware you’ll have to use Internet Explorer to download it. Yikes!

So much for the Wood Door. Again, I’d say that these are a minimum to keeping your computer fairly safe. For a determined hacker these are a mere deterrent. Therefore, take a look at the Steel Door below.