Anti-Virus Software
Do you receive strange dialog boxes or message boxes that appear on the screen?
Do you hear strange sounds or music playing from the speakers? Has a program disappeared from your computer that you did not uninstall?
Are you unable to start your computer because certain critical system files are missing?
Does your computer spontaneously restart unexpectedly?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, your computer is probably infected by a virus.
Computers connected to the internet are under constant attack by viruses, once your computer is infected the virus will usually attempt to send itself to your friends, family, and associates by accessing your email address book.
What is a Virus?
A virus is a common type of malicious code and is usually placed on a file. A virus can damage or alter data and programs on a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The goal of a virus varies from gaining unauthorized access to completely disabling a computer. A virus is typically delivered through email, but also IRC channels and websites can place viruses on a computer.
Anti-Spyware Software
Have you noticed the appearance of new program icons or folders that you did not install?
Are you being bombarded by annoying pop-ups?
Have you noticed new toolbars on your web browser that you did not install?
Has your web browser start page changed?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, your computer is probably infected by spyware.
But even if you don't see anything, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your web surfing behavior, or even worse, recording your personal information.
Keystroke Loggers can record virtually everything you do on your computer, including usernames, passwords, and credit card numbers. Everything you type or click on is continually stored in a log file and then regularly uploaded to the spyware website.
By simply browsing to a website, your computer could become infected by spyware. In fact, 9 out of 10 computers connected to the Internet are infected with spyware.
What is Spyware?
Spyware is a malicious program that employs a users Internet connection in the background to send personal information about that user to advertisers or other interested parties without the users knowledge or permission.
Spyware is similar to a Trojan horse in that users unknowingly install the spyware when they install something else, but differs from viruses and worms in that it usually does not reproduce itself.
Expert Computer Services can install Anti-Spyware software on your computer that will remove known spyware and help protect your computer from the threat of imminent spyware
Data Backup
How often do you backup your data on your computer?
If your computer was damaged or stolen, would you lose valuable data?
How would you replace your family photos, documents, and email address book?
Hard drives do not last forever; eventually your hard drive will fail, are you prepared?
For most companies, data is your most valuable asset. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, 93% of companies that lost their data for ten days or more declared bankruptcy within a year and 50% of those businesses that were without data management for 10 days, filed for bankruptcy immediately.
Ask yourself what kind of shape your business would be in if you were to lose all of your data including your customer records, your accounts receivable, payroll records, vendor records, and even the software you use to run the business.
Expert Computer Services can recommend and implement a backup strategy tailored to suit your needs.
Data Recovery
Are you unable to run some of your programs?
Are you unable to start Windows?
Are some of your folders empty that should be full of files?
Are you unable to access files on a CD, DVD, floppy disk, flashcard, or memory stick.
If you answered yes to any of these questions, some your data is probably missing or corrupt.
A data loss situation is usually characterized by the sudden inability to access data involving a previously functioning computer system. This may be caused by a virus that deleted data or reformatted partitions.
If you receive the following error message “Missing Operating System”, it usually indicates that a virus has infected your master boot record or partition table. In some cases it may be caused by a bad CMOS battery that defaulted your BIOS setting.
In some cases, data loss is due to a bad CD, DVD, floppy, flashcard, memory stick, or a failing hard drive. Most hard drives will emit a light mechanical hum that a user may notice under normal operation. An indication of impending failure is when the normal sound changes to louder ticking or grinding noises. This symptom may precede actual data access problems as the hard drive utilizes spare sectors. Other forms of data loss include accidental deletion of data, accidental reformatting of partitions, and sabotage.
Expert Computer Services has the tools and knowledge to recover your data even if the hard drive's partition table, boot record, FAT/MTF, or root directory is lost or damaged.
Supported file systems:
· FAT 16
· FAT 32
· NTFS
· UDF
Supported drive types:
· IDE hard disk
· SCSI hard disk
· SATA
· RAID 0 and 5 arrays
· Floppy disk
· CD ROM
· DVD ROM
· Flash card
Anti-Pharming And Anti-Phishing Software
Just when you thought it was safe to go back online something new comes down the pike. Step aside phishing, there’s a new kid on the block and its called pharming.
Phishing and Pharming have the same end result, to part you with your money, but they go about it in a different way. With phishing you need to click on a link, usually within an e-mail that opens up your web browser and takes you to a official looking bogus website, so as long as you don’t click on the link your safe, not so with pharming.
What is Pharming?
Pharming redirect your web browser from the official commercial website you intended to visit and leads you to an official looking bogus website.
Even though you typed in a legitimate URL into the address bar of your web browser, website redirection schemes will take you to an official looking bogus website. When you arrive at the bogus website you will still see the legitimate URL in the address bar. Unaware that you are at a bogus website you will then enter in your username and password and the information will be sent to the scammer’s website.
What is Phishing?
Phishing is an e-mail scam used to gather personal information for purposes of identity theft, using a official looking e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate business and includes an urgent request for personal information usually invoking some critical need to update an account immediately. Clicking on a link provided in the e-mail leads you to an official looking bogus website.
Anti-Pharming and Anti-Phishing software protects you from pharming and phishing scams designed to steal personal data, such as credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers, usernames, and passwords.
Expert Computer Services can install Anti-Pharming and Anti-Phishing software that will help protect you from pharming and phishing scams in real-time using 52 automatic verification tests. In addition, it automatically provides you with valuable information such as, who owns the website receiving the information and a confirmation that the owner is a real organization.
When you see that the website receiving the information is different from the expected website or that there is a potential risk in sending information to that website you should rethink your intention to submit personal information to that website.
