Topic: Prevent malware from infecting your Windows computer - some tips (Read 131 times)

You made a good point, and that's exactly what I do when I have a lot of curiosity about a file that's being offered to download. I downloaded it as a file for Windows in the VirtualBox virtual machine. One of the differences in using virtual machines is the advantage of using machine rollbacks: the ability to create system snapshots. After using the snapshot, when you reboot your virtual system, you get a completely clean image without traces of previous use.
As for the regular use of VPNs, free versions and not, some of them have disadvantages such as disconnections, and the owner is not always notified that his real IP is displayed at some point. For this purpose, there is software that completely breaks the Internet at the moment when the VPN breaks the connection.

"home broadband provider", do you mean ISP? Because ISPs also get hacked but generally they are not able to hack the customers too.

What you're describing is probably not an attack or malware, as network slowdowns and connection interruptions are usually caused by throttling by your ISP, not by any sort of virus.


Linux running on Unraid sounds like a good idea, but it only makes sense if you have obscenely large resources that you can split up comfortably.


Then you are able to rent a cheap VPS and install Wireguard on it.

Need to ask this can a malware frequently attack a network drive adapter  or probably reside on a home broadband provider.... had an issue of getting blanked out whenever I use my WiFi but works fine using a LAN cable with another wifi although  I haven't tested the normal

Maybe then the simplest solution to protecting a PC on Windows would be to install a virtual machine? Directly on Linux OS (double kill!). And work on a virtual machine with any suspicious (as well as working) data. That is, separation of functions: Windows (the main OS) for entertainment (home PC), a virtual machine for solving work problems (work PC). Ideally, this separation of workstations should be done on different physical PCs.

Firstly, all these malwares are more obtainable when you use a cracked version of windows as against buying a licensed version. The licensed version comes with additional features that help protect windows from malware infections.

Another major loophole is that most engineers format computers and use drivers pack to drive the windows, thereby using outdated software that may be porous and would not update its malicious software detection tools to the recent version. It's recommended to run windows update and wait until its updated to the most recent and secured version.

There is a tool embedded by Microsoft to help fish out some of these viruses, it called MRT (malicious software removal tool), you can run it occasionally and it helps. You cannot get access to it if your OS is not properly updated. It scans and automatically removes malicious software from the computer and gives you a report of work done.

Finally, using of Licensed Strong Antivirus like QuickHeal , Nord, or even Avast can go a long way to give you strong firewall and temper protection that free versions cannot offer you.

I must mention that I do not support consistent use of VPN, especially for personal or confidential activities as it may have a back door and your personal data rendered vulnerable.

Although windows is the weakest OS, these tips above can also help you stay on the safer side even in all its weakness

I use the latest version of the windows, and I make sure to always allow security updates whenever they are available, I hope that helps.

It is good to get names so we can search and download from the official websites of these companies which is also important to avoid downloading a bad or copy application.
Can we get some example for this suggestions, like the best Free or Paid VPN that we can get to do the job. It will be really helpful rather than keeping us guessing.

I don't know if I'm correct, but most of the time, the infections are caused by careless use of browsers, am I right? I am a victim of ransomware malware (2–3 times) and clipboard viruses (multiple times) and others. And all of them happened when I downloaded a random files from the internet (intentionally or unintentionally) and ran them, thinking they'd be safe (I know it's stupid). Luckily, there was no financial loss for me, and I only wasted a whole day hard formatting the HDD/SSD and reinstalling the OS. So if we were to be careful when browsing the internet, not downloading random shit or visiting random sites, we could avoid most of the infections? And just as you said "Trust your gut", because I don't use any Antivirus software.

No, it won't. Maybe the antivirus won't even detect it. You have to trust your gut.

I did not know about this tip on computers but I read that the Australian President Albanese turned off his phone at least one time a day, before reboot it. He said it is recommendation from his staffs as one of tip for security of his phone.

I don't understand technical reasons but by reading your thread, this tip, I guess Albanese does it with a similar reason on security technically.

Turn your phone off every night for five minutes, Australian PM tells residents

Thank you for this informations, this will help in many ways on preventing for any further attempt on scam or hack targeted at us, i really like the last aspect here which talks more about the use of VPN because as from my own view, id thought about the negative impression of making use of a VPN in such a way that those that uses it were intended for an attack and not knowing we can also shield ourself from any of it kind, its also impressive to know that there are many advantages we could get from the use of VPN and also have access to either the free or paid ones and still works and function as expected.

In as much windows security is bad using older versions of it like Windows 8 makes things worse for you especially since they're not even getting security updates anymore.

Some of these VPN are malwares, so in as much as anyone will want to use VPN either free or paid versions they should consider going for a trusted and reliable ones

I don't think you will be warn by any of these steps since these are just manual processes done to prevent malwares.

It's the Os that detect malwares when you are downloading files to your computer while if your Os is too weak or limited to detect it then it will have room in your computer and this is what this tips are helping us prevent.
That's why it's good to be cautious of were you download and sites you visit.

The best protection against viruses and malware is not visiting weird websites, downloading unnecessary (pirated) software, being nosy and clicking, downloading and visiting everything you see. A healthy dosage of paranoia helps in this case. If you consider most of the unnecessary things you see online a threat and you don't engage with it, you limit the ways by which a malware can enter your system.

Windows is the most targeted OS in the world, which doesn't make it very secure, but with the right habits, you can keep it safe enough.

Alright. Thanks a lot.
Last question, will this stop me or at least warn me when I'm about to download a file with a virus into my computer, however hidden the virus may be?

Yes, that is what I mean. After you go to Task Manager and terminate the program carrying the virus then you can reconnect to the internet.



You should try as many as possible (without wrecking your computer in the process) because some malware don't do all these checks and others make additional checks, for example they may also check your graphics card name for VMware or VBox.

Every computer I've ever used comes with windows and I've never thought anything about it ever even though I knew it was inferior in a way to other OS. It's more user friendly and what I'm used to.
My question is, how do I use a computer without internet access? Do you mean I'll disconnect from the internet after I discover a virus? Please can you explain that better.


Another lame question here, bare with me. Lol.

Would anyone of the points you mentioned be good enough, or I have to follow more than one to be sure
Also, if I do these, but go ahead to download a malicious file that has a virus into my computer unknowingly, will I be protected from a hack? How do I discover it before it's too late and how do I stop it before it gets too late?

Some of us are cursed unfortunate to have to be using Windows when it has been long known to be the least secure operating system in the whole world, essentially.

There are a variety of ways that malware can infect your computer but we are not concerned about any of them right now, we are here to discuss one thing.

Most malware have a kill-switch that terminates if it is running inside a virtual machine, or is running with some other parameters, so in this post, I will tell you the common cases where a virus will exit and show you how to activate them.

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Easy:

• Internet connection

The simplest case is when the malware is unable to talk to anything on the internet. In this case, based on samples that I have seen, they automatically exit and/or query in an infinite loop. An offline computer cannot be hacked. The way to detect this is to run monitoring with Wireshark or tcpcap, and have other software read the log files they generate and alert you if a program is repeatedly querying an IP address or website.

• Hostname

Here in this case, the virus will quit if the hostname matches one from a specific list. You are able to open any reverse engineering tool like WinDbg and search for human-readable strings, to find them out. If you have MinGW installed you can also use the "strings" program in the terminal.

• MAC Address

Similarly, the virus quits if the system's MAC address matches one on a hard-coded list. There are some MAC address spoofers you can find on Google which can spoof your MAC address to be one of those addresses, which will make you immune to that strain of malware.

Medium:

• Username

Similarly, the virus will sometimes refuse to execute if the username matches a hard-coded list. But since you can't easily change the username on a Windows account, this could pose a problem. The solution is to use a reverse engineering tool to "insert" your own username as a string (but it would be a lot safer to not run the program).

• Display resolution

Generally speaking, malware will not run on any computer that it believes is a virtual machine. This includes all systems with resolution less than 800x600. You can't easily spoof your display resolution, however you can intercept API calls to Windows by downloading/building the Detours program by Microsoft and intercepting the calls. And also  you can use the Process Monitor program that is part of Sysinternals to detect this API call.

Hard:

• IP Addresses

If there's a hard-coded list of IP addresses, you can take advantage of that, but this usually does not work for two reasons. First, home connections use NAT by their ISP which means their IP address keeps changing. And second, it is next to impossible to spoof the IP address unless you have access to specialized software that is not available on Windows. But you can try anyway.

• Registry Keys

Certain viruses detect the strings "VMware" and "VBox" insite the registry editor for the hardware ID, the disks, etc. But it is very dangerous to change these as you might break your computer by using the registry editor.

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I have one more tip for you: If you use a VPN for the whole computer, you will bypass most malware which checks if you are using a residential (home) connection or a datacenter (VPN) connection. So you should have a VPN running at all times, even if it is a free one.

I hope this helps somebody and makes them avoid getting hacked.