Quick Malware Removal

Today is the day for pet hates

I have just seen an advert on my very own Blog which says it can remove malware from my PC in minutes. I know from repairing computers that removing malware from a pc is a very involved process and cannot be done in 2 minutes. Hours more like. Compounded very often by the fact that the pc has been seriously messed up by the use of quick fixes. These do more harm than good.

Prevention is better than cure
Get a decent antivirus product. If it is free, it is not decent. It is a cut down product and hardly worth using up system resources for.
Dont think that you can use your computer on every website in the whole world. Many websites, even the best and most prominent in the world can be invaded by malicious code which can infect your computer in a drive-by fashion. Always be wary.
Dont say "yes" to everything when you download software.
Dont download willy nilly. The more you have running on your computer the slower it gets.
Avoid those exciting little toolbars, they use up valuable system resources as they busily chat away to their coders in the background. Read all the messages properly when installing software. Say NO to additional bits and pieces. Acrobat reader is one of those which does all this for example
Dont allow a program to automatically update. Always do it when YOU want to and not before. Automatic updaters are chatty little programs. If you are running loads, you will certainly notice a difference in the speed of your once pristine computer.
Just because it is free, doesnt mean it is good.

Registry cleaners are not the holy grail.
The registry is what runs the computer. Everything on your computer can be found as coding in the registry. Mess the registry up by deleting items or programs or so called orphan files can seriously mess up your computer. Avoid registry cleaners unless you know what you are doing.

If your computer is running slowly or is behaving erratically, it needs attention from an expert. Having a decent antivirus program will probably save you money by avoiding to have to pay for the expert. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted is going to cost you a lot more money in the long run. Decent antivirus such as ESET Smart Security will be money very wisely and well spent. Contact PCBuilda if you need to discuss it without the jargon and we will help you through the mire.

Scamming Is Becoming a Daily Hazard

One of my pet hates is receiving one of those phone calls from someone claiming to be from Microsoft informing me that my computer is sending weird messages to the internet and is possibly infected. If you ever get one of these phone calls please remember the following

• Microsoft never phone you up to say this
• Microsoft doesn't have your phone number (unless you are registered with them and have given it to them)
• They cannot tell that your computer is sending messages to anyone unless they are intercepting and hacking your computer traffic.
• They may show you your event logs, event logs are always busy and invariably show some errors so are not a worry so dont panic

Firstly what do you do?

• Never believe anything they are saying
• Dont worry that they are showing you errors on your pc
• Never hand over any payment
• Never allow them to dupe you into going to a website of any description
• Never talk to them again.

What happens next if you have paid them some money and allowed them onto your pc

• If you pay money, you will never get it back
• They may use your credit card details fraudulently
• They may send you to an infected website that downloads malicious content to your pc

If they put malicious content on your pc it could

• log all your keystrokes (ultimately giving them your passwords and who knows what else)
• Put monitoring software on your computer in order to allow them to gain access to your pc at any time
• Use your webcam to monitor you and your environment so see what valuables you have
• Put malicious ransomeware on your pc which will render your computer useless unless you pay the ransom money to have it removed.

If you have allowed them access
WARNING
Do not use your computer for any banking. Get onto another pc and change your passwords for your banking if you do banking online. Have your computer checked over by a virus specialist.

Why you should pay for Antivirus

The quickest answer is that they are fully functioning products which protect you proactively. Free antivirus is simply not as good. Some of the functionality is turned off which means you are vulnerable.

You have paid between £300 and upwards to £1500 for your laptop, but having it infected with a virus is the quickest way to trash it. If you are unfortunate enough to be infected with Ransomeware, you have little option but to reinstall everything again. This costs time and money if you have to take it to an expect like us. Whereas we would love to help you regain control of your precious laptop and pc it is easier and more cost effective to actually buy a proper and tried and tested fully functional antivirus product which also does Antispam, Antispyware, Identify protection, Anti-theft tracking, and does it efficiently and quietly in the background. We only recommend and use ESET as our antivirus vendor as they are the only ones that have proved to us that we are safe. Most of the laptops which come to us as infected are actually protected by Norton or Mcafee or AVG which speaks volumes in my book. Norton or Mcafee are the antivirus products most often shipped with new laptops or computers but you dont have to stick with them. You will find ESET faster, and less intrusive than either of these as ESET have designed the product with speed in mind. ESET uses a different method to assess a file which means that even never before seen virus in the wild are eliminated before they get chance to hook into your system. Once your system is hooked, it is difficult to remove those little critters without expert help.

Some people think that there is a lot of scaremongering about virus infections through using the internet. Believe me it isnt scaremongering. An unprotected PC can get infected within 5 minutes. YES, thats right, 5 MINUTES. I have had it myself when building computers, before I have had chance to download the antivirus, I have been zapped, so I know how easy it is. The risk is very real and very difficult to avoid. Think Russian Roulette, it will get you eventually if you try enough times. Some viruses have mischievous intentions by making your system behave abnormally or erratically. Others have a much more insideous nature such as those which harvest your details. It is something you probably wont be aware of as if they published their presence you would do something to rid yourself of it. It suits them better to keep a low profile whilst they are up to their dastardly deeds.

How do you know you are infected:
There are many symptoms but amongst the most common are

• Strange toolbars showing up in your web browser
• Unable to boot your computer
• Blue Screen at bootup (sometimes a fake produced by a virus infection)
• Unexplained random rebooting
• Constant rebooting
• Unable to go onto the internet
• Loading inappropriate web pages when you access the internet
• Screen blocked by virus warnings
• Screen advising you that you are infected
• Screen advising you that the police are watching you
• Desktop screen goes blank
• Antivirus product will not start
• Unable to open programs
• Very slow booting or generally slow or unresponsive behaviour in use
• Hanging or crashing programs
• Access denied to your files and programs
• Webcam activating randomly
• Unseen virus activity such as harvesting your address book, or personal information, or keylogging your bank logon screen. (They can replicate what you have typed). 

Virus cleaning is £45 as it takes hours of scanning time and a lot of expertise.  Most antivirus products are less than that, so what are you waiting for? Give us a call 01244646010 and protect your information and your system with ESET. It is money well spent.

ESET have won VB100 awards every single year for the last 10 years as a top rated and highly effective product.

SNOM news is Good News

Today I found out that PCBuilda ie "me" was accepted to be a SNOM value added reseller or VAR for short so I am really chuffed. The people at SNOM have been really helpful and provided training so that I can be a proper SNOM engineer which is another string to the PCBuilda bow. Voice Over IP or VOIP is definitely the way to go. I have trialled it for my own business to see if it can be done cost effectively and the good news is it can. You dont need a lot of equipment and you dont have to sign up for crippling costly bills. It is ideal for any small businesses who have to keep an eye on the pennies. For bigger businesses it can offer real cost savings.  VOIP will give you the sort of facilities such as proper call handling just like the big boys (and girls). You can have a wonderful phone system for virtually just the cost of a phone and a teensy weensy monthly phone line bill (mine is currently coming out at 25 Euros every couple of months on a pay as you go deal). It has to be a VOIP phone to get this sort of brilliance but once you have configured it to route your calls, you can be in when you are out and out when you are in if you so wish. I have 3 "phone" lines coming in here all with their own identity and I can have any number of phone extensions too. I think it is actually quite brilliant and a small business holders dream. I am not in the BT pocket with line costs and call costs. I dont have to tackle a system which wont really do what I want unless I purchase more equipment either. My VOIP solution will do it all on a shoestring. Perfect.

Ransomeware - What exactly is that?

One of the most prevent virus threats at the moment are called ransomeware. Once your computer is infected it locks your computer down or even encrypts the contents of your hard drive so that you cannot get into it. You will be presented with a wonderful message (NOT) which informs you that you are infected with their virus and that in order to regain control of your computer you should contact them and pay the ransome. This is generally not a hoax. Although sometimes it is. Once your hard drive is encrypted by someone else, there is no way you can unencrypt your data unless you are given the unencryption key. This is not something you can figure your way out of. Encryption is there to make sure that nobody else can read your data, it is secure. The only way you can help this situation is by making sure you dont get infected in the first place. The way to do that is to make sure you are using a really good antivirus product such as ESET Smart Security. A freebie antivirus is all well and good but it will never give you the sort of protection you need to combat the range of complicated and sophisticated threats that are rife in the cyber world today. A few pounds well spent will save a lot of heartache in the long run. To remedy your computer in the event of a common threat such as this will cost a lot more than the cost to protect it. Think of it as the kind of insurance that you do actually get the benefit of.