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Re: Anti Virus
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 04:21 pm, Roger Stewart wrote:
This just isn't true of Defender at all! I started my machine at 9:57 AM this morning and it got updates to Defender. I just checked a few minutes ago, and it got a definition update again and it said that update was created at 10:32 AM And? There are often periods where no new definitions are released for 24 hours or more, sometimes much more, depending on the number of new threats identified. That doesn't mean that Windows Defender (and every other self-updating scanner) hasn't checked, it just means that there's nothing there. You do not need to manually update the virus definitions on ANY modern antivirus. If you persist in believing otherwise then be my guest. Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. ~ Lauren Bacall
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Re: Anti Virus
Gene
If this is true, it is a disadvantage but for most
users, it will make little difference. If you are unfortunate enough to
come in contact with malware very shortly after release, that is, within one
day, you would be more likely to be infected. Most users aren't exposed to
new malware that quickly. While it's better to get frequent updates during
the day, most users are not at significantly more danger if they don't.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
This just isn't true of Defender at all! I
started my machine at 9:57 AM this morning and it got updates to Defender.
I just checked a few minutes ago, and it got a definition update again and it
said that update was created at 10:32 AM. So I was running an out of date
definition database for many hours today. This is a real problem and needs
to be addressed by Microsoft.
Roger On 11/19/2016 2:47 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
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Re: Anti Virus
Roger Stewart
This just isn't true of Defender at
all! I started my machine at 9:57 AM this morning and it got
updates to Defender. I just checked a few minutes ago, and it got
a definition update again and it said that update was created at
10:32 AM. So I was running an out of date definition database for
many hours today. This is a real problem and needs to be
addressed by Microsoft. Roger
On 11/19/2016 2:47 PM, enes sarıbaş wrote:
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Re: Anti Virus
Roger Stewart
Watch out for messages saying Delivery Status and delayed or failure. I've been getting these for the past 5 days and they aren't related in any way to any messages I've sent as they've all gotten through and I see them on these lists or the person I sent them to has replied. These must be some kind of scam or contain malware. I just delete them without opening them at all.
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Roger
On 11/19/2016 4:26 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
So how come we still keep seeing so many emails with Javascript (often ZIPped)
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Re: Anti Virus
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 02:26 pm, Antony Stone wrote:
If it's an "almost guaranteed failure", then the spammers / malware-spreaders Because "almost guaranteed" isn't "guaranteed." Anyone who's got any sort of modern antivirus at all is virtually guaranteed to be safe from this sort of stuff. That there are untold millions without any antivirus or who have paid antivirus programs for which they've ignored many prompts about the need to renew cannot be doubted - at least not if you do this for a living like I do (partly) and have been slack-jawed that some people are so cavalier and/or stupid. I don't know what benefit most malware developers get other than kicks. So much of it, though not anywhere near to all, isn't trying to steal anything nor is it ransomware. At least I understand why those trying for identity theft or blackmail are doing this for, the others are even more twisted as far as I'm concerned. Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. ~ Lauren Bacall
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Re: Anti Virus
Antony Stone
So how come we still keep seeing so many emails with Javascript (often ZIPped)
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
attachments, which would try to install cryptolocker-style malware onto our machines? If it's an "almost guaranteed failure", then the spammers / malware-spreaders would have moved on to something else by now - after all, they only do what they get a benefit from. Antony.
On Saturday 19 Nov 2016 at 22:12, Brian Vogel wrote:
Trying to spread something by e-mail attachment is an almost guaranteed --
Never automate fully anything that does not have a manual override capability. Never design anything that cannot work under degraded conditions in emergency. Please reply to the list; please *don't* CC me.
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Re: Publishing EBooks with NVDA?
Gene
Another member of this list explained how to get
the Drop Box application to run with Xp even though it isn't supposed to any
longer. I tried the procedure and it works.
Here is my recollection of the
procedure.
When you run Drop Box, you will be asked to sign in
and you will hear a short cut command. Execute that command.
I believe your default browser opens to the log in
page. Whatever opens, log in.
You can then use Drop Box as previously. You
don't have to keep logging in. I did this procedure once and after some
synchronization by the application, things were back to normal
again.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Paton
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Publishing EBooks with NVDA? dropbox works on windows above xp, and maybe even vista is out of the loop these days. Running either of those operating systems, you must go on line to manage your dropbox folders. But the desktop app is fine on seven, eight.1 and 10. The web site offers a few challenges, but can be managed just about. I know nothing of e-books publishing, or e-books desktop apps, other than Kindle. Can't comment on one drive or google drive either. But messages i have seen, suggest that both will have their problems, but these can be overcome. If you are wanting to back-up, take a look at carbonite. https://www.carbonite.com/ good luck. J.P On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:20:41 -0500 "David Russell" <david.sonofhashem@...> wrote: Hello NVDA group, Websites like www.daisy.org highly recommend author Dave Gunn's "Accessible eBook Guidelines ....." (title snipped). Have you found accessibility and or compatibility with major eBook publishing programs used with a screen reader to be a real, major, challenge or hurtle? This question is more for those with no vision or very limited vision. Alongside that, Dropbox may work well with IOS devices compared to desktops or laptops, but what cloud portals work well with desktops and laptops? Thanks for your input. -- David Russell david.sonofhashem@...
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Re: Anti Virus
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 02:01 pm, Gene wrote:
And this again points up a number of the things I've been saying. These days issues with infected attachments are few and far between because either the e-mail provider (e.g. Gmail), the individual user's antivirus/security suite, or both scan attachments before the end user can ever even get access to them and will remove them if they are determined to be infected. Trying to spread something by e-mail attachment is an almost guaranteed failure. The comment by Enes simply reinforces my point that if a particular piece of malicious software is new enough that it is not always going to be detected by any particular individual security scanner. Depending on the timing of sample submissions, speed of analysis, timing of suites updating their definitions, etc., can determine whether something is quarantined or not. Automatic execution of attachments is generally turned off these days by default because it had been so problematic in the early days as well. Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. ~ Lauren Bacall
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Re: Anti Virus
Gene
Opening an attachment often automatically causes it
to be executed.
Gene
hi gene, opening the attachment isn't a problem. Executing the file is. I recieved a
spam mail that contained a malicious javascript enclosed in a zip file. My
antivirus, avira, missed it. When I uploaded it to virustotal, I was the first
one to upload it and only 2 antiviruses caught it. On 11/19/2016 9:03 PM, Gene wrote:
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Re: Anti Virus
Well just for the heck of it I googled the question this is the first answer I got.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
http://askbobrankin.com/can_a_virus_really_destroy_your_hard_drive.html Now viruses are not the most destructive things that can go wrong. Ransomware is a little higher but the worst viruses are those that have configured or have misconfigured systems. People assume that the default is good and it may not be. Often when I have recieved a system for maintaining I go through their programs list, malware scan the system, update drivers and bios then ask about them what is this, what is it used for. 9 times out of 10 I get, a site told me it was good, or a friend told me it was good or it came from the system, or I couldn't afford program x and the x place said I needed y z program and I can't buy it so I had to crack it and now I have a virus or something so I loeded 20 programs to get rid of it. Firstly, if someone is telling you you need x program you probably do. You can probably get round with another program unless you need the spaciffic functionality, look at microsoft office. Yes I'd like it, no I don't need it. True I loose outlook but I have thunderbird, firefox, openoffice and others, I have jarte for my word processer, etc, etc. Next, While there are a lot of bad hackers out there, a lot are actually putting those skills to good use, for as many comercial programs out there there is probably an opensource app which may do some if not all the functions or bits. In the beginning I had a professional cd creating program, I couldn't afford it so like most of us in the 90s I cracked it. Later on with all the crazyness going round I looked for what I needed. Goldwave cost me 40 bucks but had a cd extracter in it. I got a reasonably expensive ocr solution and also a video converter suite. I have a free youtube software on top of that and a free cd creation program, and there are other ways. I had winzip for ages because it was the best but I always had to get past the reg screen so I hacked that. Now after it became inaccessible I use 7zip which does the same thing but is faster. You don't always find what you want especially when a free program goes bust sometimes but there are ways to get round as long as you can throw the bulky suite away and use 5 different modules. You have to adapt. Next if you get it came with the system. Then read the forking manual, search it online and you will probably find that most of what it came with the system crap is just crap. And if not it needs to be configured or it can be removed if absolutely not needed. There are bits of crap I choose to leave on my system that control sensors and power and the like but I know I could have done with the minimal. The only things you really need are the drivers for your core pc devices, prodcessers, video, sound and thats it. Storage is good, and your usb ports. Over that sensors if they have anything maybe network cards and utilities for the sensors. If you are a hunking programmer or a guy that wants to fiddle with his bits then install the big utility suite, and some extras. And if you want the backup program and like it install and buy that. If you don't mind the games install those and whatever. If you are in a business and can use accessibly the remote app and the other sharing use them. Most users won't need that stuff. You will never need the office trials, the wild tangent games or the outdated programs, trials and other junk installed on a system. If someone said I heard it from a friend or a site, I usually look at it myself. Now if its a friend and you know they used it and it was good fine but even so. Its like the person that says windows10 made my system not work and so I will sue ms because I had to buy another one. The only time that happens with me or those I maintain is if the system is so old, fixing it would end up with it probably failing later and so I push for a replacement or modification. Maybe I shouldn't bother fixing systems maybe I should buy some ransomware that basically says your files are encripted because your computer is broken, please give me 5000 dollars to buy you another one. I wander how many would fall for it. I suspect a lot. Its a shame we a re so gullable!!!
On 20/11/2016 7:37 a.m., Gene wrote:
I don't know if any malware can physically damage a computer. Most malware doesn't. it may do all sorts of things you don't want it to do but physically destroying your computer is the least of the worries associated with malware. I don't know anything about your neighbor's knowledge of computers but a high degree of skepticism should be maintained regarding what people tell you unless they have proven records of knowledge and reliability. There is an enormous amount of misinformation constantly being circulated regarding computers and related matters.
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Re: Anti Virus
I couldn't aggree more.
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Sadly all the malware tools I have used have found false alarms that basically mean important stuff can get deleted. You then have to exclude these, which is fine but then you are excluding bits from protection. Sometimes the software picks up on programs it was happy with for ages long and says they are bad. I have only had it do this to an old text editer which since got updated and a few games. But I know in one case where a friend of mine got it so it got nasty with her screen reader, drivers and bits of windows. She had to reformat to get it working, I am unsure if she ever solved it right. While I am no sinic, there is a point where you shrug your sholders and think maybe a crappy security software is better than this advanced one which I need to make sure and moniter daily to make sure nothing is stuffed up on my computer more than it is. Allready one of my software packages is mangled by some software its not important and well some other things have stopped working. A good reformat will fix them but they are not important either but then I am lucky. There is no easy way to submit to these previders easily either which adds to the frustration.
On 20/11/2016 7:03 a.m., Gene wrote:
No matter how careful you are, you can still be infected, even by going to reputable sites if those sites are hacked or if the advertising on those sites is hacked. Yes, people should follow good safety procedures. but that does not minimize the need or usefulness of good antimalware programs.
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Re: Anti Virus
Well I did have one on a server once, I was able to kill it easily enough, it did do a lot of system dammage and needed me to fix it but it wasn't dead.
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Its likely they took it back to a shop and they were tricked into replacing it or something.
On 20/11/2016 7:42 a.m., Rosemarie Chavarria wrote:
Hi, Gene,
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Re: Anti Virus
Sounds like she got scared by the shop.
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A virus can't destroy a computer. The only way that this can happen is if it gets in the bios and since normal users can't get access to those, the only way this ever happens is if someone connects a memmory stick or other device with a virus in its firmware in the first place. It can happen where for example in apple computers there was a thunderbolt security issue. And there have been autorun viruses but not many. I do know this, you can't just contract one out of the blue even if you downloaded one. I guess you could get something that ran your drive till it died or something but destroy your ram, or something no. The only other way a virus could destroy a system is Iguess make your cpu overheat to a point where it melted. Or over charge your battery in your laptop till it exploded but you would notice it before it got that bad.
On 20/11/2016 7:28 a.m., Rosemarie Chavarria wrote:
Hi, Arleen,
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Re: Anti Virus
Ron Canazzi
Hi Gene and Others,
I don't know if it is true any longer, but I was told by a techie doing a postmortem on my old Windows 98 system that someone using a Linux system had hacked my computer and 'flashed the bios.' He did so in such a way that the system would not connect to any external computers: Internet with modem, Internet with LAN, other computers with cables and so on. I forget the exact technical aspects of it, but I did have to get a new system. I guess there is much better built in bios protection now of days, so maybe this isn't possible any longer.
On 11/19/2016 1:37 PM, Gene wrote:
-- They Ask Me If I'm Happy; I say Yes. They ask: "How Happy are You?" I Say: "I'm as happy as a stow away chimpanzee on a banana boat!"
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Re: Anti Virus
enes sarıbaş
hi, The antivirus I use, avira, has an automatic task to check for
updates every 2 hours.
On 11/19/2016 8:48 PM, Brian Vogel
wrote:
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 08:00 am, Roger Stewart wrote:
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Re: Anti Virus
enes sarıbaş
hi gene, opening the attachment isn't a problem. Executing the file is. I
recieved a spam mail that contained a malicious javascript
enclosed in a zip file. My antivirus, avira, missed it. When I
uploaded it to virustotal, I was the first one to upload it and
only 2 antiviruses caught it.
On 11/19/2016 9:03 PM, Gene wrote:
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Re: Publishing EBooks with NVDA?
Joe Paton
Hello David,
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
dropbox works on windows above xp, and maybe even vista is out of the loop these days. Running either of those operating systems, you must go on line to manage your dropbox folders. But the desktop app is fine on seven, eight.1 and 10. The web site offers a few challenges, but can be managed just about. I know nothing of e-books publishing, or e-books desktop apps, other than Kindle. Can't comment on one drive or google drive either. But messages i have seen, suggest that both will have their problems, but these can be overcome. If you are wanting to back-up, take a look at carbonite. https://www.carbonite.com/ good luck. J.P
On Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:20:41 -0500
"David Russell" <david.sonofhashem@gmail.com> wrote: Hello NVDA group, Websites like www.daisy.org highly recommend author Dave Gunn's "Accessible eBook Guidelines ....." (title snipped). Have you found accessibility and or compatibility with major eBook publishing programs used with a screen reader to be a real, major, challenge or hurtle? This question is more for those with no vision or very limited vision. Alongside that, Dropbox may work well with IOS devices compared to desktops or laptops, but what cloud portals work well with desktops and laptops? Thanks for your input. -- David Russell david.sonofhashem@gmail.com
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Re: Anti Virus
Nimer Jaber
Hello, I have and continue to recommend Sophos Home for accessibility reasons, and also because it is highly rated y independent labs. Moreover, Sophas tends to sell their products to businesses mostly, and have a very reliable product. They are 100% accessible.
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 1:10 PM Gene <gsasner@...> wrote:
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Re: Anti Virus
On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 11:10 am, Gene wrote:
Empahsizing the importance of the user knowing how to protect him/herself may be construed by some as an implied view that it is unimportant to use antimalware programs if you know how to protect yourself in other ways. That would be an even greater folly than spending hours worrying about precisely what antivirus you're running, so long as you're using any antivirus or security suite. This class of program is an essential component of operating any computer that interacts with cyberspace, particularly any Windows computer, since Windows is the most popular target for viruses and malware since it's got the biggest embedded base. Just for the record, those who use Macs, are on Android or iOS powered smartphones, and, now, even Linux are fooling themselves if they don't have some sort of security scanner running on those platforms as well. All have reached the critical mass of embedded base where, while not as popular or "as much fun due to amount of devastation" for virus/malware coders, there are enough users to make them targets. They get hit a lot less frequently, but they do get hit. Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. ~ Lauren Bacall
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Re: Anti Virus
Gene
I didn't keep your last message in this thread so
it won't be quoted below. but I'm glad we had the exchange.
Empahsizing the importance of the user knowing how to protect him/herself may be
construed by some as an implied view that it is unimportant to use antimalware
programs if you know how to protect yourself in other ways. I am
therefore, pleased that it has been clarified that your position is that such a
program or programs should be used even if you know how to protect yourself by
safe practices.
Gene
----- Original Message -----
I have seen virtually any antivirus or security suite you can name either praised to the high heavens or called almost completely useless. It really depends on who's doing the reviewing and the metrics they're using. As has been said here, and elsewhere, antivirus programs are not and should not be considered your first line of defense against infection. Your own browsing habits play a far, far greater role in that. Good browsing hygiene will keep you quite safe, if not 100% so. If you have not been infected nor had whatever antivirus or security program you've been using report anything being quarantined in a very long time you can be reasonably certain that your browsing habits are OK. If you're constantly infected or have things quarantined without actually having been infected it would be very wise to start looking at precisely when, how, and why this is happening. Most infections are the direct result of user action, not some backdoor entry. Windows Defender has proven more than adequate for more users on more machines than I can count at this point in my career. Nothing is perfect, some competitors may be better, but Windows Defender is not even close to "junk". This thread entitled, Windows Defender as an integral part of Windows 10,
which just started yesterday on bleepingcomputer.com's Windows 10 Support Forum,
is worth reading [disclaimer: I've got two posts in that thread so far, but
that's not why I think it's worth looking at]. Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. ~ Lauren Bacall
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