If there was but one way to live life, life would be a very boring repetitive ritual. At any point if we think we have it right and we are beyond questioning then we are closed off to new information and growth.You are a hopeless case until life teaches you otherwise. Experience can't be told as I now see again. You have to make your own.
Actually, that is only half the truth...But as explained, I am the one that has to deal with a hacked PC if something should happen.
Oh yeah, I heard about it. A Botnet, mostly with poorly secured devices like Security Cams, Printers etc that then can launch DDOS attacks. That actually never came into my mind.The those devices can then be used by others to start attacks on other people around the world.
I also haven't thought about this as well, as I barely ever send mails and only use it in my browser, I don't have a full client like Outlook. But of course a virus could install an extention that sneeks into my mail tab and sends mails, or modifys my send emails.And what about all the email recipients, Some virus use your email info to spread
I heard Defender got better with W10 and is now pretty good, but when last I looked, it was not on the top of the list. And I haven't looked for some years now, so I cannot say how good it compares now.how they compare to built-in solutions like Windows Defender
I also heard about this and I am going to make RAM tests some time in the future. But for now it appears AppInit is the culprit even behind 0xc and so it has a higher priority to find it and get rid of it for good. As it is more likely to be the cause than multiple devices having defective RAM.One such tool is MemTest86
Ok, then rest assured that I am going to use Defender as soon as the AppInit issue has been taken care of.To me it was just too obvious and essential. No PC with an internet connection should be used with an older OS, w/o firewall and w/o AV software. To protect yourself and the rest of the internet world from you.
I just had another thought: What if Defender never did false positives on the installed programs (yes the .exe files are still false positives), as these files also got affected by AppInit. So Defender rightfully flagged them. But since Defender also flagged the installer files without reason, I always thought these program files are false positives as well. I will see that when I let Defender running after AppInit has been taken care of. If it then still flags them or not.I use Defender and don't have any issues
I used Defender as a synonyme for AV software in the last comment. I am going to try another AV software like Avira if Defender still throws too much false positives. But I don't have the time to try either software today, so I just said I will use Defender....and why don't you try what I posted in #148???? Defender is a PITA when you try e.g. hacking tool etc.
Since I now know what he was trying to say (but hasn't), I am going to listen to him as I already said. I just was in a rush when writing the comment, so I haven't told him that I am also going to take a look at Avira, which might've avoided his second comment.coopervid knows his stuff, I'd listen to him and have him help you. This is a mess
The Eagles would sing: Take it to the limit. But basics are missing here. And RIP Randy Meisner!PC/network (yes they go hand in hand) security is not a one size fits all things nor is it a one and done situation. Essentially anyone can be gotten but the entire goal is to make is as difficult to be gotten as possible. You accomplish this through overlapping layers of security and of course by making wise decisions.
Since we are on the topic and we are just talking about security bits and pieces lets talk about the whole thing so no one gets the wrong idea.
How to secure your network/PC the DQ way:
I.) The Edge
- do not use your ISP modem as your "router", buy your own device that you trust and put it behind the ISP device
- when possible don't use a simple "router", use an actual firewall that allows you to control and filter your traffic
- as far as firewalls run away from anything with the term "gaming" in it and stick with things like pFsense, Untangle, ClearOS
II) DNS
- there are many ways to filter your DNS queries and this is a great way of securing and filtering your traffic for security and for kids
- great options here range from simple to complex but some examples are OpenDNS, Quad9, Cloudflare and of course PiHole
(my personal favorite here is to use PiHole combined with OpenDNS)
- another reason for using your own DNS server is to obfuscate from your ISP what you are doing so they are not datamining your activity
III) The PC (from a Windows perspective as Linux is another whole topic)
- A/V is not the end all be all of security it once was but it is still an important layer and while there are free options here I think a person is best served by paying for something that has a number of functions it performs, my preference is Bitdefender
- do not turn off any security services in windows unless you have a very specific reason to do so, their is normally almost nothing to be gained by doing so
- go through the privacy settings in Windows and turn off the obvious stuff that reports back to Microsoft or allows websites to read info from your PC
(now you might be thinking well what about all that telemetry BS and whatnot Windows does, well if you setup your DNS correctly it will get stopped there)
- one of the very overlooked ways of securing your PC is to secure the thing that opens a window to the internet on it, the browser... the browser is like a vampire it cannot hurt you unless you invite it in... Here I prefer Brave and even then I go through the settings and turn off all the extra crap and crank up the security settings
- another thing overlooked, the search engine. Engines like Google and Bing love to track you and serve you BS ads that often end up being malicious because anyone can buy an ad. Here I prefer Brave search engine or Startpage, Qwaint is decent too
IV) The Human
You can have all the security in the world but , like the vampire scenario, if you invite it in you are rendered powerless. Make good decisions, don't open silly garbage or click on silly links. Don't download things from nefarious places or use mysterious torrent stuff. HOWEVER, if you find yourself in a situation where you get a suspicious link you have to click on or open a weird file or torrent do it in a VM. Use VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. Make a garbage VM and run your stuff there so that in the event it is malicious you don't torch your main PC.
Finally, back your critical data up. I am not a fan of backing up an OS but for sure backup your data and do it to 2 places. I use a cloud service and an external drive. This way if you get ransomewared or your PC gets hosed you have your data.