I Was Hacked!!!

Who hasn't received an email directing them to visit a familiar website where they are being asked to update their personal information? The website needs you to verify or update your passwords, credit card numbers, social security number, or even your bank account number. You recognize the business name as one that you've conducted business with in the past. So, you click on the convenient "take me there" link and proceed to provide all the information they have requested. Unfortunately, you find out much later that the website is bogus. It was created with the sole intent to steal your personal information. You, my friend, have just been "phished".

Free Background Checks Are Still Available?

So, how is it that you're now searching for a "free check background" or, are you really looking for a "free check background"? Got your words a little twisted around? Well, no matter. In either case, don't worry, it still amounts to the same thing and seeing that you've taken the time to actually switch the words around suggests you might be a little frustrated with the "free background check" search results, and wanted to shake things up a bit . . . maybe just to see if, by searching for "free check background," you'd find something more suitable . . . perhaps, something free?

How to Free Yourself from Cell Phone Stalkers

Although there is no universally accepted definition of cyberstalking, the term is used to refer to the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person.

Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, e.g., following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of work, making harassing phone calls, leaving harassing messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property.

Tracing People Online: How To Do It

The web is such an intricate, vibrant and advanced (some would say) "animal." But, through the intelligent use of our personal PCs and Macs, we can accomplish so much from our living rooms.

From acquiring endless data on any topic, to tracing people we have lost touch with long ago. So many things we used to do without a second thought, we would dread doing now days after being exposed to the Internet. Our computers have made it all so convenient.

Online Computer Security In 7 Simple Steps

That most people do not seem to be aware that online computer security is critical does not make it any less critical. If you have not given much thought to this yet, here are 7 simple steps to online computer security.

Protect Your Computer From Computer Spyware Software

If you own a computer, you should be aware of the dangers posed by people secretively installing computer spyware software on your computer. This form of privacy violation is not only a crime in most places, but it has become one of the leading security issues with computers and can pose a big risk to your personal information.

Computer Virus Protection

In this age of the internet, computer virus protection is a necessity. Viruses have become very rampant and they are extremely worrisome.

Protect Your Computer With Computer Antivirus Software

In the computer age of today, computer antivirus software is perhaps the most important thing you can get for your computer. There are few things worse for people today, than the possibility that a virus may be transmitted to your computer, but if a virus harms or wipes out your hard drive, you are lost. This is not an issue just for people who do most of their work on computers, but for everyone. That is why it is important for everyone to have a good antivirus computer software program installed on his or her computer. There are many choices and some people may not know how to choose a program. However, there are different things you can do to decide which antivirus computer software will fulfill your requirements.

Computer Security - Protect Yourself Against Computer Crimes

Computer security is very important as the computer has become part of how we perform a lot of our daily activities. Computer technology together with the use of the internet has provided us information at our fingertips. Be it information gathering, banking transactions, shopping or keeping it touch, it has become so part of our lives. If you can access the information, so can others. Although it is a rare occurrence, hacking has become the biggest criminal nuisance in computer history.

Data Recovery dealing with the problem

When the worst happens to your computer and all your data vanishes, do not worry! There are a number of quality data recovery companies that are able to restore your critical files quickly and easily.
Instead of tearing out your hair over a stubborn computer that is holding an essential file hostage, let the worries slide away by sending your hard drive to a data recovery company. These companies work their magic and recover files of all types in a remarkably quick turn around time. This service is essential for any individual or business that has fallen onto hard times with their computer.

Keeping your kids safe online

Your kids are online. And more than likely, you probably aren't aware of what they are doing online. You're not up to speed on MySpace (frankly, something that I just don't get but, I do have a page on MySpace), Instant messaging (which can be a great substitute for high cell phone or long distance bills), file-sharing, or anything else that is "hip" with the kids these days. (Yes, I just used the term "hip". Be glad it wasn't "rad" or "awesome".)

It's ok for your kids to be online. Don't think that by preventing them access to the internet that you are going to protect them from the evil that lurks in the dark places frequented by strange, middle-age men that never see the light of day and play online role-playing games for 30 or 40 hours straight. Don't think that by blocking access to the internet that you kids are going to be just the most wonderful little children and stay away from the evil Internet even when they are not at home. Don't be that naive. Your kids can access the Internet from almost anywhere, some of them even on their cell phones. When they go over to a friend's house, you can bet that at some point they are going to be sitting down in front of the screen watching the lastest batch of stupid human tricks that someone has posted on YouTube or Google Video. They'll be on MySpace, chatting with someone about who is doing what at school this week and where they are going on vacation for spring break and how many kegs of beer are going to be at Johnny's party on Friday night while his parents are out of town. I'm trying not to make a blanket statement about everyone's kids, I'm sure that yours are not the type that will get together and rip and run through the streets, causing massive amounts of mayhem and all sorts of social disturbances. They don't have to any more. They have the internet.

Where to Find Free Spyware Removal

The bad news is that spyware is everywhere on the internet and you could have it on your computer right now. The good news is there are free spy ware removal tools for your computer that are easy to find.

Online Backup Services

How many times have you come across a person, whose computer crashed, causing them to lose all their information? Many of us have encountered this ourselves sometime during our lifetime. However, it is as common as any other occurrence in life.

Setting up ZoneAlarm

In this age of increasing cyber crimes, everybody is busy looking for reliable security measures for their computers.

ZoneAlarm is one such security service and firewall for the Internet. It identifies each Internet access linked to your computer and enables you to control the accessibility of your programs to the Internet.

Hard Disk Data Recovery

When we save any kind of data on a computer, it moves into the hard disk. Even when we want to copy data from one storage device to another storage device like a pen drive or a CD, we save the data on the hard disc first. So it will be an unfortunate day for us if the hard disc crashes. Even if precautions against hard disc data loss are taken, accidents can still happen. In case of loss of data from hard disc, data recovery is a painstaking and long process.

Offline Data Backup

Computers are used widely by people from all walks of life, be they individuals, governments, business houses, medical professionals, aircraft and automobile industry, military establishments, researchers, retailers or wholesalers. A lot of financial data is also created on computers. Even hackers need computers to run their business!

Cell Phone USA - For Background Search Services

Cell Phone USA, an online investigation service, is regularly consulted to assist in cases arising from individuals who went through all the usual hiring practices, only to end up hiring a convicted child molester to work around young children.

Repairing Windows Problems

One of the most daunting problems to face PC users is the time that Windows starts misbehaving.

Sometimes, it is a hardware problem. Sometimes, is a driver for the hardware. Sometimes, it is a virus, adware, or a trojan that came from visiting a web site. And, sometimes, it's just Windows...

Remote Access the Secure Way

Ever been at home and needed a file from your work computer? Or at work, and needed the file from home?

There's a great service that is designed to let you access your computer remotely — and securely — from any other site. You get full control of your PC, just as if you were sitting there.

Computer Security Recommendations

I'm often asked what I recommend that people use to protect their computers when they surf the Internet or get email.

After answering the question over and over, I've added a section to my free weekly newsletter with my latest, updated recommendations.

Protecting Your Computer Against Spyware...

"Welcome to the new friendly Internet world. You'll find everything you need here, and it's all safe to use with _our_ service."

Did you ever hear that line of hogwash from an Internet Service Provider? They can't keep you free from viruses, trojans, spyware, adware and spam -- only you can do that, with the proper software.

A Computer For Christmas?

Many families will use the holiday season as an excuse.

They will get a new, or their first, computer for Christmas. If you are one of them, prepare now so that you can set up the new computer securely, before it connects to the Internet. If you have a friend who is getting their first computer, prepare and help them set it up.

Sony BMG Recalls Music Rootkit CDs

Sony BMG announced on Wednesday (11/16/05) that it was recalling the estimated 4.1 milliion music CDs that used the XCP copy-protection technology. Part of the XCP technology was the installation of a "rootkit," which hid any files, directories, programs, processes or Windows Registry entries that began with "$sys$".

Sony's Music CDs "Rootkit" Fiasco

In case you missed the news last week and this, Sony BMG was caught installing a "rootkit" on Windows computers, as part of their required music player for some of their copy-protected music CDs. The music player also installed the "XCP" copy-protection system, which included the rootkit.

Rootkits subvert the Windows operating system to hide the existance of the files, directories, programs and registry entries that they want to protect. In other words, you might expect that a rootkit was trying to protect a trojan, dialer, spam sender, popup generator, or other malware. I would not expect to find one on a music CD that I bought in a store!

Protecting Our Children On The Internet

On October 20th, as part of National October Cyber Security Awareness Month, the National Webcast Initiative held a special national webcast on "Protecting Our Children on the Internet."

The archived webcast (a broadcast over the Internet - the Web) is now available on-line.

Zombie Hunt

In a recent experiment, Microsoft took an otherwise clean computer and turned it into a “zombie”. Over a three week period, they noted that this zombie received 5 million connection requests from spammers around the world.

Government Conspiracy Reveals Printer Tracking Code

Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that they have discovered a secret code that hides in documents printed on various major commercial printers. The code allows government agencies and others who have decrypted the code to determine various factors like what printer was used and possibly when the document was printed too.

What Can I Do About All This spam? Part 3

[Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series]
In part 2, I talked about the Real-time Black Lists that ISPs can use to control the mail that they receive. Their spam filters using RBLs can stop mail before they even have to handle it. They also have more tools in their anti-spam toolbox.

What Can I Do About All This spam? Part 2

Read Part 1 of this series.

In addition to running their own spam filter, your ISP also has a couple more anti-spam tools in his toolbox. These two tools are ones that they can use to prevent the receipt of email, based on the email server where the email originated.

What Can I Do About All This spam?

We've all had the problem -- we get too many emails trying to sell us things. Sometimes it is a replica watch. Other times, the email offers no-doctor-visit prescription medicines. Yeah, right... Gimme a spam filter! Hold the mayo!

spam -- notice the lower case "s" -- the name comes from a Monty Python skit where the speaker was overwhelmed by a chorus of people yelling "spam! spam! spam!...". The term "spam", used for unsolicited, unwanted commercial emails (sometimes called "UCE"), has nothing to do with the famous ground pork product that is trademarked "Spam."

How can I get rid of it? In this first article of a series, I'll focus on two methods. First, the method that used to work and then, what your ISP is doing about the problem.