Archive for June, 2009

As a novice to the world of computer programming, you maybe wondering how to learn computer programming. Computer programming learning is not a challenging task at all. If you have what it take to achieve aims in computer programming learning, it is all open for you. Let’s explore some of the tips and trick that should be adopted when learning computer programming.

Self learning and formal learning are the two methods of computer programming learning. If you take the most successful computer programmers, they all have gone through a formal education of computer programming learning before entering in to their programming career. Therefore it is a good idea for someone to go through a formal education in computer programming learning if there is any possibility. In case someone doesn’t have a formal background, programming is still a possibility. The individuals without a formal computer education can go through different computer programming courses offered by many institutions and then get in to their careers.

Wheb it comes to computer programming learning, choosing the right technology for you is one of the most important decisions as with the wrong selection, your computer programming career will be a disaster. Unlike programming concepts, the technologies and the tools used in the world of computer programming have a variety. It is not a possibility for one to become a master of all the technologies and the tools. Therefore, one should make a conscious decision of choosing the ‘right’ technology for them at the early age of the career. Later, all the future computer programming learning initiatives will be based on what has been chosen at this point.

There are many books available for the individuals who are interested in going though the self learning of computer programming. Of course, self learning is one of the significant methods of computer programming learning that has been contributing to the progress of computer programming. The Internet is one of the best resources for the souls who are interested in computer programming learning by themselves. The Internet offers books, articles, blogs, and research papers in the field of computer programming for free. Apart from that, you can find program code samples from the Internet, so you can see how exactly the code is written for some of the common programming problems.

Once you become and compter programmer, computer programming learning will become a repetitive task as you are supposed to learn what is new in the field of computer industry daily. As new technologies come in to the world of computer science, the programmers are expected to study then thoroughly as they are needed to develop the business solutions based on the latest technologies.

Technorati Tags: computer education, computer programmers, computer programming courses, learning computer programming, programming concepts

In the quest to protect our computers online we usually miss some of the most important tips. Take the growing plague associated with rogue application like Antivirus360. A few years ago rogue applications were relatively unheard of, but today there are four times as many rogue applications as there are legitimate protection programs. There are several things we all need to do to insure that we do not end up polluting our computers with rogues.

The first thing everyone needs to remember when it comes to internet safety is to always update the computer’s operating systems when new updates come out. Most of the new updates pertain to security holes that allow scams to install malware without the user’s permission.

In our fight against viruses and malware most people just use a standard virus protection program and expect it to keep us safe. Though standard virus protection is necessary it cannot completely protect computers from some types of malware. For that matter, many of the newest types of malware can block standard virus protection software. Antivirus360 does this with the help of the Trojans that are associated with it. What is also needed to prevent Antivirus360 and other types of malware from installing, is a reliable malware protection program.

There is a distinct difference between rogue application and other types of malware. There are some types of malware that computer users never know about and most standard virus protection programs do not identify as malware. Some virus protection programs will notice that Trojans are on the user’s computer, but will never protect against the malware itself.

Browser toolbar helpers are one such type of malware that can get past most types of standard virus protection software. Antivirus360 has aspects that install various types of browser toolbar helpers. These so called helpers redirect web search to sites that con people into believing that Antivirus360 is a legitimate program. All this is to convince the user to buy a full version of the malware that infected the computer in the first place.

Of you are currently relying on just a standard virus protection program and you have not recently updated your computer’s operating system, you are definitely at risk of getting infected with Antivirus360 or some other type of malware. If you are currently fighting Antivirus360 and need help your solutions are still the same.

The first thing you should do is install a 100% guaranteed malware protection and removal tool. After running a full scan to remove all known threats you can then update your computers operating system, followed by an update of the standard virus protection software. Do not take the chance that you will get infected; only install a 100% guaranteed malware protection and removal tool.

To scan your pc for free and find out if you have Antivirus360 click here.

Carl runs a site devoted to helping you rid your computer from all sorts of spyware and malware at http://www.spyzooka.com/

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/all-you-need-to-know-about-protecting-your-computer-against-antivirus360-1075631.html

Technorati Tags: legitimate protection, operating systems, virus protection programs, virus protection software

Nowadays people look for data security. Every person has a different reason for securing his data, some wants to secure it because leak out of those data might cost him his business and some want to secure it (especially teenagers) from their parents, for not to spoil their image and hide facts from them.

Data security or data protection now is of prior importance, their are various ways of protecting your data, but none will prove to give you complete guarantee that your data will be safe. The only way that will give you complete satisfaction that your data is completely safe is by locking your important files and folders. Your files and folders an be locked with a software and it can also be locked without a software too, but then it will depend upon the Operating System that is being used.

Locking your Data without Software’s :

1. Using Linux/UNIX:

For Linux and UNIX systems, they have got permissions set so that no one other than administrators can see the folders, you can enforce these restrictions via “chmod go-rxw “.

2. Using Windows:

Using the advanced security tab in Windows and remove every user from it (using DENY option) is a good way not to let anyone view your data. And if you want to restore your access back, simply add yourself back.

Locking your Data using Software’s :

Using Desksense:

Desksense is a software used to password protect folders from snooping eyes.No one can access your locked folders without using the appropriate password to access the locker room.

Now easily drag and drop your fear into safe vault.

Note : Desksense is creating a huge appeal in the internet marketing world in a very short interval of time. And well Desksense works in Windows Operating System ( XP, 2000, 2003 and Vista )

Kevin is a avid blogger & specialises on Web marketing & SEO

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/the-ultimate-ways-to-lock-folders-and-files-991111.html

Technorati Tags: data security, protecting your data, security articles, using linux, windows operating system

To ensure that you build and deploy the most secure software possible, Orthus recommends the following best practices for secure coding:  

1. Validate user input

Never assume that input from HTML forms is valid.  Just because you gave the user only hidden fields or pull downs, or you had JavaScript to validate every input, does not guarantee the input will not be tampered with.  A hacker with a simple local Web proxy can change anything they want after the JavaScript executes.

Verify that all input from the user contains valid characters and represents a valid value before using that value in your application.  Check it early in the processing of the request to avoid accidental use before the validation is done.  Also, check it at multiple levels (see defence-in-depth, later).  Be restrictive.  You can always ease up on the restrictions.  It’s harder to tighten up the validation rules later, as you may have already stored user data that would no longer be valid.

2 Escape input values

Implementing any code that creates file paths, HTML, SQL statements or other strings that another subsystem parses requires care.  User input may contain characters that allow a hacker to cause your application to pass invalid strings to those subsystems that result in unauthorized access.

Unless you disallow all special characters in your input validation, you will need to make sure you properly escape or in some other way, account for special characters in the target subsystem (see the documentation for the subsystem in question for definitive escape requirements).  For example,

• in inputs used to calculate file paths: /, . or ..
• in strings used to calculate or display HTML: >, <, “, &
• in strings used to calculate SQL statements: ‘, “,

Many runtime environments already provide functions to escape these inputs.  Use techniques like parameter substitutions in the database interface rather than building up query strings using concatenation.  Leverage this and other layers of protection that system components provide.

3. Fail Safe

When making decisions that affect security, it is important to write code to deny access by default.  Only allow access after confirmation that the user has proper authorization to proceed.  Also, avoid the use of negatives.  It is too easy to get the sense of logic wrong.  The code above would be clearer if the local variable reflected the same sense as that of the method being implemented.

4. Treat sensitive security information with care

Be mindful of the type of information being handled.  If the information is sensitive, take special care in the code than handles it.  Breaches that reveal information such as passwords, PINs and personal data can be disastrous.

Make sure this information is only stored in appropriate locations.  For instance, never write to an application or system log any of the user’s personal information (password, SSN, credit card numbers, etc.), as these logs may be readable by operational personnel who should not have access to that personal information.  Write only enough information about the user to identify within the application which user made the request.

Encrypt the sensitive data stored on mass storage.  Storing clear-text passwords in a database, for instance, means that a hacker who simply gains read access may have all the keys to the kingdom.

Only store the hashed copy of the password and use this to compare with the hashed user input (these values should also be salted to increase the work required for a dictionary attack).

Inevitably, there are clear-text copies of the user input in memory, often on the heap long after the code runs, and maybe on the paging file of the operating system.  Keep the length of the code path used to process the clear-text password as short as possible.  Also, clear the contents of this local memory storage within the same block as the declaration of that storage.  This will help keep the clear-text passwords off the stack and heap.

5. Practice defence-in-depth

Protect your application in multiple ways.  Do input validation with the tools the application environment provides.  In addition, write your code to assume the input validation might fail.  This costs little in terms of code or performance, but makes the code more robust in the face of failure.

6. Minimise error message information

Provide intelligible, useful error messages to your users, but keep the details in the log file.  For example, users don’t need to know about database operations or details of the errors encountered.  A safer approach is to tell the user something went wrong, but only provide the details in the log.

7. Good comments

Good comments in code are a major help in maintaining code – if they help make the code clearer.  Many developers know they should add comments and so they take the easy way out and add comments saying what the code does.  The code is right there. Readers can see what it does – these comments are not what they need.  Tell them why decisions are being made the way they are.  Help the reader understand the code.

8.  Study patterns

When reviewing code, you can often find logic errors that may affect security by watching for patterns in the source code and looking for exceptions to those patterns. For instance, in the following code:

if (result == CASE_1) return(VALUE_1);

else if (result == CASE_2) return(VALUE_2);

else if (result == CASE_3) return(VALUE_3);

else if (result == CASE_4) return(VALUE_4);

else if (result == CASE_5) return(VALUE_2);

/* otherwise we’re good to go with the default */

return (VALUE_0); 

The next to last return statement looks suspicious. It could be a cut and paste error. It could be a logic error and cause the return value to mislead the caller into providing access to something that should be denied – e.g., a list of employees rather than a list of distributors.

9.  Have someone review your code

Find someone else to review your code and offer to reciprocate.  Having someone else read through your code almost always results in them asking you questions.  The ‘what if?’ and ‘why that way?’ questions make you think about and justify your choices outside the more solitary activity of writing the code.  This change in context provides an opportunity to step back and take a fresh look at your work.

10. Study defects

When a security-related defect is found in your code, try to understand the cause.  Study the defect and try to determine how you would have done things differently.  When another developer makes the change, understand the changes that they made – maybe there’s another way to fix it other than what you chose.  Over time you’ll be able to recognize the patterns of these defects and generalize the solutions. Part of what you should strive for is to not make the same mistake. Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

Sean Bennett is Commercial Director at Orthus limited (http://www.orthus.com). Orthus is a leading provider of information risk professional services, helping orgnisations globally to measure, minimise and manage the information risks they face. Orthus provide end to end services for clients to comprehensivly address risk in their environments including Insider Threats, addressing issues including data leakage, sabotage and fraud; External Threats (http://www.orthus.com/dr_overview.htm) including wireless security, penetration testing, virtualisation security, vulnerability management and Secure Software Development Life-Cycle; Supply Chain Threats including securing cloud services and data processed by third parties; and Legal and Regulatory challenges including Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS).

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/10-best-practices-for-secure-coding-981947.html

Technorati Tags: Practices for Secure Coding, Secure Coding

Below you will find several mistakes which I find to be typical of PC users. Not all of them are crucial alone, but taken together they can have a drastic impact on overall PC security. It doesn’t cost a dime to know what you shouldn’t be doing at all and what you should be doing in a proper way. Some mistakes lead to frustrated experience, and I want you to avoid it.

1. Expecting too much from your current antivirus program. In fact, relying on antivirus alone is dangerous by itself because people are inclined to trust vendors who claim to provide 100% detection rate and fastest scans in the world. The truth is: every antivirus can fail sooner or later. Statements of 100% detection are based on laboratory-carried tests which rarely have anything in common with real life surfing, downloading, watching videos etc. Antivirus is important, sure, but only as part of multi-layered protection.
2. Ignoring Microsoft Windows updates. Microsoft releases security hotfixes for Windows and its products (Internet Explorer, Office, etc) which are meant to cover revealed vulnerabilities. It is important to have them installed in the system. Same applies to 3d party software which is common in netbooks and desktop computers. Keep your Java, Adobe, Firefox patched. Software manufacturers do have reasons to provide updates. For instance, a Java vulnerability has been used to spread Virtumonde, a really nasty infection.
3. Using Symantec antivirus. This is debatable, a lot of people are fans of Symantec products, and they have reasons to. But my little experience helping PC owners to get rid of various types of malware shows that Symantec protection is common on infected computers. Its protection is insufficient, to put it mildly. If you can switch to another antivirus software, do it. There are better alternatives priced lower than Symantec.
4. Installing fake or rogue antispyware program. I just can’t stress enough how important it is. It happens with user consent and permission. How? Simple. Getting persuaded to get a decent antispyware protection, an average PC user goes online and looks for some “best antispyware”. This is a common keyphrase targeted by scammers. They go to great lengths to make their websites rank high for this particular term. Unsuspecting user downloads something titled very close to a famous brand and instantly infects the system with malware, while resting assured that “best antispyware” will put a strong shield on the way of intruders. It is not that rare to come across a PC unintentionally infected with malicious, fake antispyware program.
5. Forgetting to renew antivirus subscription. Depending on how your antivirus was initially configured, it may not warn about expired subscription. Expired antivirus is not receiving latest updates and its real-time monitor can be deactivated. So it makes sense to keep an eye on your antivirus shield.
6. Configuring software firewall is not a simple task. Even those programs with self-learning mode need some time to “get familiar” with running applications. But a properly configured firewall is a great helper to your safety, it minimizes the chances of intrusion from the network.
7. Using a potentially vulnerable email client. So, Outlook Express has become notorious for its ability to miss messages with dangerous attachments and links to malicious websites. A good email client should have some sort of “internal intelligence” to make the user’s experience as safe as possible. It’s best not to open messages coming from suspicious addresses. Also, configure your email to be scanned by antivirus. Set in the options to receive only headers of messages instead of bodies; this way you will be able to read titles of the messages without downloading them onto your computer. It allows to quickly detect suspicious messages.

These are indeed very common mistakes which can be accounted for such a large number of computers infected with malware.

Kelly Wright has created a guide to setting up PC security using free software. A combination of antivirus, antispyware and firewall will suit most home users keeping their computers safe.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/7-common-pc-security-mistakes-996038.html

Technorati Tags: antivirus program, antivirus software, microsoft windows updates, pc security

I been using the Internet for a long time now, so long I don’t even remember when the first I ever used it. But back then there was a lot less hassle of having protection on our PCs and not only that! You also didn’t have to worry about having your very own identity stolen!

Today’s world is totally different, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet that would love to steal your credit card, bank details, paypal account you name it they want it!

But it’s not just that they also want to take your identity to ruin your credit by taking out massive loans in your name and having it paid in to your account for them to just withdraw it from there PC…

It does not stop there either, not only are we scared to wits of losing our cash but we also have people wanting to destroy our data on our computers out of pure fun and joy… It’s a sad world we live in.

Now I’m not here to scare you, don’t close that Internet connection just yet as I do also have some great tips and ideas on how to keep your self protected from such worries.

Firstly, every computer must own a Firewall, but I can hear the slow ticking in your head already banging away and asking… What’s a Firewall?

Firewalls are designed to prevent other computers accessing your computer without your permission, to keep this very basic, a firewall is basically wall between you and the Internet. For others to get pass this wall they have to be given permission from the users on the other side.

Firewalls are great protection; I have used many, ZoneAlarm, Norton and also McAffee. But the best I have seen so far would have to be from Panda Software. They have a two in one package having Antivirus and Firewall all in one box. Though this may stop people from trying to attack your PC using software etc there are still many other routes that you can get attacked.

Viruses, Spyware, Trojans are just a few names that are currently taking advantage of thousands of PCs around the world; a firewall will not protect you from all of these!

Instead, you are going to need an Antivirus product which will take care of most of these threats.

Most Antivirus software will protect you from almost all threats on the Internet, you don’t need Spyware protection for Spyware, Trojan protection for Trojans… You get the picture?

One single Antivirus application will do all the work for you, don’t sit there searching endless searches for different products to help you out… Why?

In the end you will have loads of junk software on your PC all taking up system resources and wasting your computers CPU power. You will start to see your PC running slower and in the end you will just have to do a recovery of the entire system because it will be too naked to even start up… Phew!

But you get the picture now; a single application is all you need, the big brand names do all this for you at the moment, it runs in your task bar and does almost everything except make you a nice cold tea! Just make sure you install the latest Antivirus software soon as your Operating System is installed… We don’t want anything bad slipping through do we!

To keep your self safe from all the nasty stuff on the Internet then the only best advice I can give you is to stay away from them bad nasty adult sites and also stay away from FREE software sites… These type of sites are hard to pick from, some are bad… Some are good.

Keep your software up to date and watch where you go and you should have no problems at all.

http://www.sunilsaripalli.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/security-articles/internet-security-virus-checkers-and-firewall-software-protection-tips-976818.html

Technorati Tags: firewall, firewalls, internet connection, trojans, Virus Checkers