What Is Computer Viruses ? And How To Avoid It ?

Here you will learn about what is viruses ? How to avoid viruses? Causes , symptoms and how to remove viruses ?

How to remove and avoid computer viruses ?
A computer virus is malicious software (also known as "malware") that can copy itself and infect other software or files on your computer.
If you suspect your computer has been infected, then several antivirus websites provides step-by-step instructions for removing viruses and other malware.
Fortunately, if you update your computer and use free antivirus software such as AVG, you can help permanently remove unwanted software and prevent installation in the first place.

How do I know if my computer has been infected? After you open and run an infected program or attachment on your computer, you might not realize that you've introduced a virus until you notice something isn't quite right. Here are a few indicators that your computer might be infected:

►Your computer runs more slowly than normal.
►Your computer stops responding or freezes often.
►Your computer crashes and restarts every few minutes.
►Your computer restarts on its own and then fails to run normally.
►Applications on your computer don't work correctly.
►Disks or disk drives are inaccessible.
►You can't print correctly.
►You see unusual error messages.
►You see distorted menus and dialog boxes.

These are common signs of infection—but they might also indicate hardware or software problems that have nothing to do with a virus. Unless you run some kind of Malicious Software Removal Tool and install industry-standard, up-to-date antivirus software on your computer, there is no way to be certain if your computer is infected with a virus or not. Beware of messages warning you that you've sent email that contained a virus. This can indicate that the virus has listed your email address as the sender of tainted email. This does not necessarily mean you have a virus. Some viruses have the ability to forge email addresses. In addition, there is a category of malware called rogue security software that works by causing fake virus alerts to pop up on your computer.

How do I install updates and antivirus software if I can't use my computer? It might be difficult to download tools or update your computer if your computer has a virus. In this case, you can try one of the following options:

►Use another computer to download the tools to a disk.
►Get help through your Antivirus's website support.
►Have your system checked by a Technician

How can I prevent infection by computer viruses?
Nothing can guarantee the security of your computer, but there's a lot you can do to help lower the chances that you'll get a virus.
It's crucial to keep your antivirus software current with the latest updates (usually called definition files) that help the tool identify and remove the latest threats. You can continue to improve your computer's security and decrease the possibility of infection by using a firewall, keeping your computer up to date, maintaining a current antivirus software subscription, and following a few best practices.
Tip: Because no security method is guaranteed, it's important to back up critical files on a regular basis.

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What Is Proxy ???

Actually What Does Proxy Exactly Means ?

Here Is A Brief Description About Proxy !

Let’s start from general meaning of word 'proxy'. It’s actually an agent/substitute or anybody acting at place of any other. Technically, proxies are used to bypass some firewall restrictions, maintaining anonymity or for many other purposes. Like you can use proxies for accessing social networking sites from your college network which the firewall may restricts.
Let’s understand the common methodology (talking in general terms) You bunk the lecture, requests your friend to speak up your attendance, you get the attendance (in case professor doesn’t' detect).

Another example, when college firewall doesn't allow you to connect to a site (say Facebook), You requests a proxy server to bring the web page from Facebook and serve you, Now the firewall thinks you are dealing with a server other than Facebook and allows you to make a connection(in case firewall doesn't detect ).
Hence you have successfully managed to bypass a firewall. Proxy servers simply act as intermediate between your machine and actual server that you are accessing. Proxy servers are mostly used to maintain anonymity. Suppose you are planning to commit an online crime(although you shouldn’t) you can use a proxy server. The actual webserver doesn’t come to know about you because proxy server is dealing with webserver on your behalf.

Common ways to use proxies:-

(1) Setting in Web Browser
Steps:-
1. First of all log on to whatismyip.com and pen down your current IP.
2. Logon to google.com and search for 'fresh proxies' you will get many sites providing you list of IPs and respective port numbers. It must be like this IP:port. Suppose logon to
http://www.digitalcybersoft.com/ProxyList/fresh-proxy-list.shtml

3. Now copy the IP and port no.
4. In Mozilla Firefox browser, go to Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings. Check the option "Manual Proxy Configuration" , fill IP and port no. You can configure the proxies in any browser.
5. Check out whatismyip.com again, hopefully it must have been changed. Similarly you can configure proxies in other web browsers.

(2)Using softwares and applications:-
You can download many IP hiding softwares. They are easy to use and freely available on internet. They automatically keep changing your IP after a particular interval of time. As an example, 'Ultrasoft' is quite easy to use and very effective but then again there are tons of them out there.

(3) Using websites:- Many websites (e.g. hidemyass.com ) provide free services to hide you IP address. You can directly visit other websites through them. Although the methods, mentioned above are better for long term, this can be used if you urgently need to visit any website without your service provider or anyone else finding out.

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Changing IP In Google Chrome/Configuring Proxy ~ with Screen Shots Step By Step

Hi Viewers !
 Today In this tutorial I will show how to change your IP Address easily in Google Chrome Without Any Software.
WHAT WILL YOU NEED:-
You need only fresh IP and PORT NUMBER !
Google it you will find it easily !
And a little mind you need LoL .. :P 

So lets start !
 First i will find my IP ! What is my actual IP .. go to http://whatismyip.com
You will find your IP Address there !
Here is It !

Got It ! My IP Starts with 111....... For security reasons I blurred my IP !
Lets move ahead !

STEP 1:-

Follow Screen Shots !

Go To Settings

STEP 2:-
Click Show advanced Settings..

STEP 3:-
Click Change Proxy Settings 

STEP 4:-
If your on LAN click LAN Settings and In case you are on wireless or dial up networks Click Settings ! check below both screen shots in this step(step 4)

For LAN Users

For Wireless Or Dial Up Users

STEP 5:-

Check Use a proxy server box and enter IP Address in Address box and port number in Port box. The addresses which you recently googled and found one !
So move to next step !

STEP 6:-

I entered IP Address and port number and applied. Do same !

Read Next !

STEP 7:-

Now go to whatismyip.com
you will find this different IP ! Check Below screen shot!

Thats It !

In case you want your original IP back , its easy ! Check screenshot !

Happy Changing IP's , Now you can configure your IP and can apply any IP throughout the world of any country !

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Changing IP In Firefox/Configuring Proxy

Setting in Web Browser 

Steps:-

1. First of all log on to whatismyip.com and pen down your current IP.
2. Logon to google.com and search for 'fresh proxies' you will get many sites providing you list of IPs and respective port numbers. It must be like this IP:port. Suppose logon to
http://www.digitalcybersoft.com/ProxyList/fresh-proxy-list.shtml

3. Now copy the IP and port no.
4. In Mozilla Firefox browser, go to Tools->Options->Advanced->Network->Settings. Check the option "Manual Proxy Configuration" , fill IP and port no. You can configure the proxies in any browser.
5. Check out whatismyip.com again, hopefully it must have been changed. Similarly you can configure proxies in other web browsers.

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Hiding Important Data Behind Images~ Learn Now

Steganography is the art and science of hiding messages, Images, Data etc. in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the Data- security through obscurity. By using this small and neat trick you can hide whatever data you want behind any image of your choice without reducing its quality, In the following tutorial I will show you how you can hide data behind images without using any exotic software.(Good old Winrar or Winzip is sufficient)

1. Create a folder in your C drive and name it as "hide"(Using Root Directory will make this a bit easier).

2.Now you can put anything and everything you want to hide in this folder. Text files,images,executables (ANYTHING).Also, put the image behind which you want to hide the files in the same directory, say "image.jpg".

3.After putting everything you want to hide in the "hide" folder, Right click on it, and click "Add to Hide.rar" or "Add to archive". Our goal is to create a .rar file of the "Hide" folder.
Now you should see the "hide.rar"created in the same directory along with the folder.

4. Now we need to open up command prompt and change the working root directory to your current directory and type the following commands.(First change directory then create the output file).(Remember "C" is capital in "C:\\")

►cd C:\\
►Copy /b image.jpg + hide.rar output.jpg

Here "image.jpg" is the image behind which you want to hide the rar file.
"hide.rar" is the file containing the files to be hidden.
"output.jpg" is the output file that we want. It contains the hidden files, but looks like an image

After executing the following command, we will see an extra image called "output.jpg" created in the same directory.(Note that it's size is size of image.jpg +size of hide.rar)

Now you can delete all the files except "output.jpg". If you double click the file, it opens a normal image. But you can see the hidden files by opening the file with winrar.(Right Click->Open With->Choose WinRar.)

That's It! Now you can send this image to anyone, what others will see is just a regular image but if the recipient knows, s/he will be able to access any secret information privately.This tutorial can be used for any type of files like mp3,wmv,txt etc. since anything can be put into a Rar file.
Although you may want to keep the files to be hidden as small as possible since it wouldn't be very subtle if you try hiding a 15 Gb setup file for the game 'Crysis 3' behind a 5Kb smiley picture.

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Cheat Engine

We will discuss here about cheat engine. What is cheat engine?? How does it works?? What are s different functions?? How it can be used. Below are answers to all the questions in your 2 kg brain may be more than 2 kg..lol just kidding .. :P 

Read On !!

Here's a seemingly atypical tutorial on "Cheat Engine". It's mainly about hacking games, but we'll see there's quite a bit more to it than just games. So, let's dive in.

First of all, what is Cheat Engine?
Cheat Engine is an open source tool designed to help you to modify (mostly) single player games so the user can make them harder or easier depending on their preference. (Example: If you find that 100HP is too easy on a particular game, you can try playing a game with a maximum 10 HP as a challenge). Cheat Engine(CE) also contains several other useful tools to help debugging and really just messing around with games and pretty much any applications.(Example: As a prank, one may alter the download speed shown in a torrent client/download manager to perhaps 100Gbps or something like that.)

CE also comes with a memory scanner to quickly scan for variables used within a game and allow you to change them, but it also comes with a debugger, disassembler, assembler, speedhack, trainer maker, direct 3D manipulation tools, system inspection tools etc. - The ultimate tool for a mischievous programmer. So, read on to find out how CE does it.

Although CE can do quite a bit more, let's take a look at an example of "hacking" a game. Now, every single application there is uses what's called "variables" to store various values. In a game, for example, the player's HP, level, ammo, position - literally everything is stored in certain variables. There could be a separate variable with values 0-100 keeping track of hit points (HP), another variable keeping track of what level the user is currently in, and perhaps three more keeping track of the X,Y,Z coordinates of the avatar or player in a 3-D game. Almost all new games these days run in cycles. What I mean by that is the game has a recurring infinite loop of some function (group of statements) that goes on and on until the player exits/pauses the game. Inside the loop, the function's code checks to see if (example) any user event has occurred. Did the user press the arrow keys? If so, then update their position accordingly. Did s/he click the left mouse button? If so, then decrease ammo by one and call the function to launch a projectile from the gun and so on. Certain aspects of games often rely completely on a particular variable and trust it to maintain a legit value. Considering that the average user may never even know about the existence of these background variables, it's a reasonably safe bet. It's just a game after all and implementing double checks, encrypted values and a sealed environment (sandbox) is simply not worth spoiling the performance and gameplay. This small point is what leaves almost every single player game vulnerable to nosy software such as Cheat Engine.

This is also the reason why CE does not (yet) work for most big online games likes RuneScape, WoW, AoC etc. since the data and any changes done to it are always double checked with the server's copy. Whatever happens at the server, stays at the server and although you could make yourself LOOK like a pro, that will be only because of your dumb browser. (I.e., Like all applications, your browser also maintains variables which can be tampered with, but that doesn't affect the server's copy)

What CE does is try to find out which variables the application is using, the addresses at which they are stored in the RAM and possibly tamper with them according to what the user(you) may want. For gamers, this tool is simply god sent. You can increase your speed in "Need for speed", get infinite ammo in "Call of Duty" and avoid killing a thousand people or typing cheat codes for money in "Grand theft Auto" and so much more.

Rewinding back, how does any of this relate to hacking? It all lies in experience. CE teaches you how to find out exactly what the problem is and how to solve it. The procedure for tampering with games is very close to what we will try to accomplish in later, more advanced hacking techniques. CE gives you the feel and thrill of cracking a seemingly impossible problem and teaches you how to look for an open window when the door is locked - which is actually a very accurate definition of hacking. CE gives you a hint, a glimpse of advanced hacking procedures to which we shall get to later on. Fair warning, in my experience I've noticed that the number one reason for beginners giving up early while learning hacking is simply because it just gets a little boring. Outside of movies, that's just the way it is. But for those willing to make the journey, the reward is more than worth it. I admit that to truly enjoy using CE, you have to be somewhat of a gamer. Hacking depends on, more than anything else, practice because practice only can give you the experience needed to truly hack like what you see in movies. (Yes, it's possible. Everything is..) CE is nowhere close to a professional hacking tool, but it's a step in the right direction (plus it's fun). For the programmers, as I mentioned before CE is open source - It's all out there waiting for you to explore. (Check out the official website given below)

This was more of an introduction than a tutorial and that's because CE comes packed up with it's own excellent tutorial for it's usage. For beginners I recommend going through the tutorial(The one that comes with CE). As easy as I've made it sound, head over to the following website to download CE and see for yourself.

http://www.cheatengine.org/

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Commonly Used Terms/Abbreviations In Cyber World

When It comes to internet/cyber world, there are number of abbreviations/terms expert used are listed below.
So lets start below are some frequently used words, their brief meaning and acronyms that are commonly used in the world of Hacking. Why? Because humans have gone to the moon but refuse to pick up the remote laying on the other side of the couch. Humans should be defined by laziness before intelligence. Anyways, nobody likes the new guy who needs to have everything explained to him/her. Hacking is no exception. Simply going through these common abbreviations could save you some googling time. There's nothing that you can learn, that you won't ever use. Here we go!




DDoS :- Distributed Denial of Service Attack, uses a list of reflection servers or other methods such as DNS to spoof an attack to look likeit's coming from multiple ips. Amplification of power in the attack COULD occur




VPS :- Virtual Private Sever




SE :- Social Engineering




HTTP :- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The foundation of data communication for the WorldWide Web.




SSH :- Secure Shell, used to connect to Virtual Private Servers.




FTP :- File Transfer Protocol. Usedfor transferring files over an FTP server.




XSS (CSS) :- Cross Site Scripting




Skid :- Script Kid/Script Kiddie




VPN :- Virtual Private Network




Nix :- Unix based operating system, usually referred tohere when referring to DDoS'in




SQL :- Structured Query Language. It usually goes along with a word after it, such as "SQL injection."




FUD :- Fully undetectable, can be used in many terms. Generally in combination with crypters, or when trying to infect someone.




LOIC/HOIC :- Tool(s) used by many anonymous members to conduct DDoS attacks. It is not recommended to use these under any circumstances.




Trojan :- A Trojan is a type of malware that masquerades as a legitimate file or helpful program with the ultimate purpose of granting a hacker unauthorized access to a computer.




Botnet :- Computers infected by worms or Trojans and taken over by hackers and brought into networks to send spam, more viruses, or launch denial of service attacks.




SQL Injection :- An SQL injection is a method often used to hack SQL databases via a website, and gain admin control of the site.




Root :- Highest permission level on a computer, able to modify anything on the system without restriction.




Warez :- Software piracy




White Hat :- A "white hat" refers to an ethical hacker, or a computer security expert, who specializes in penetration testing and in other testing methods to ensure the security of a businesses information systems. (Good guy, per se)




Rootkit :- A powerful exploit used by malware to conceal all traces that it exists. Ring3 - Can be removed easily without booting insafemode. Ring0 — Very hard to remove and very rare in the wild, these can require you to format, it's very hard to remove certain ring0 rootkits without safemode.




Script Kiddie :- A script kid, or skid is a term used to describe those who use scripts created by others to hack computer systems and websites. Used as an insult, meaning that they know nothing about hacking.




IP Grabber :- A link that grabs someone’s IP when they visit it.




VPS :- The term is used for emphasizing that the virtual machine, although running in software on the same physical computer as other customers’ virtual machines, is in many respects functionally equivalent to a separatephysical computer, is dedicated to the individual customer's needs, has the privacy of a separate physical computer, and can be configured to run server software.




Malware :- Software designed todo all kinds of evil stuff like stealing identity information, running DDoS attacks, or soliciting money from the slave.




Phreak :- Phone Freaks. Hackers who hack cell phones for free calling. Free Long distancecalling. Etc.




Bot :- A piece of malware that connects computer to an attacker commonly using the HTTPor IRC protocol to await malicous instructions.




Shell :- The common meaning here is a hacked web server with a DoS script uploaded to conduct DDoS attacks via a booter.




DOX :- Personal information about someone on the Internet usually contains real name, address, phone number, SSN, credit card number, etc.




Worm :- Software designed to spread malware with little to no human interaction.




Deface :- A website deface is an attack on a site that changes the appearance of the site or a certain webpage




Keylogger :- A software program that records all keystrokes on a computer's keyboard, used as a surveillance tool or covertly as spyware.




Remote Administration Tool :- It's a general term for a hack that can let someone remotely control your computer with admin access.




Black Hat :- The Bad guy. A Hacker that uses hacking for illegal and unethical purposes.

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