If you were looking to employ someone, you’d carefully check their reputation and their references.  Email providers are now becoming just as cautious about who they accept emails from, in an effort to prevent large volumes of unsolicited commercial email (spam) from moving through their servers.  They’re turning to ‘blacklist’ services, to see if you’ve developed a reputation for being a known source of spam.  Let’s look at blacklisting and how it can put a halt to your legitimate emails. 

There are numerous blacklisting services on the internet, which use various methods to build up a list of known spam sources.  One such method is a ‘honeypot’ – pretending to be an unsecure email system, which attracts spammers and spamming software.  The blacklisting server then adds the internet IP address of where the spam came from, to the blacklist.  Email providers check this blacklist before accepting email and if the sender’s server is on that list, their email may be rejected before the recipients even see it.  This is different to spam filtering which actually checks the contents of the email itself.

Unfortunately, your own business can become blacklisted if one of your computers picks up a spamming software ‘bot’ or malware.  Like a virus, this malicious software installs itself onto your machine and starts sending out spam emails through your internet connection, however it may not be detected by your anti-virus software.  You can very quickly become identified as a spam source and blacklisted, which will prevent legitimate emails from being sent from your own local email server. 

The first indications of blacklisting are usually email failure error messages when you try and send a message.  They commonly refer to rejecting your email for ‘policy reasons’ and may or may not mention spam or blacklisting.  Email addresses that you’ve previously communicated with successfully may now start to reject your messages.

To tackle this, the first step is to confirm which blacklisting services you appear in.  Some services even provide a link in the email failure message with further information on why you were blacklisted, when it happened or the possible cause.  The infected computer then needs to be identified, removed from your network and thoroughly cleaned.  Your email server should also have its configuration checked to ensure it’s not an ‘open’ relay, allowing emails to pass through it which did not come from you and are not destined for you.  Once you’re sure your network is completely clean, you can ask to be ‘delisted’ from the services you’ve been appearing in.  Some services will action your delisting request as soon as they receive it, whereas some will take days or weeks and some services even request a payment to speed up the process for you.  The key to successful delisting is to make sure your computers are completely clean first.  If you make multiple requests to be delisted and you’re still generating spam, the services will start to ignore your requests and you’ll remain on the blacklists. 

Of course, a better option is to prevent spamming malware from entering your network in the first place, so always be cautious about what you download from the internet, what email attachments you open and what website links you click.  Talk to your local Computer Troubleshooters about how to protect your network or for help if you think you’ve been blacklisted.

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The rate of rootkit infections is on the rise. Your average infection is installed on your computer as a program or a service. A rootkit, however, is usually installed as a device driver of some kind. This makes a rootkit much harder to detect and much harder to remove.

The name comes from the UNIX world. In case you aren’t familiar with UNIX, it’s an operating system kind of like Windows, but more geared towards server or business applications. Linux is sort of the workstation version of UNIX. Anyway, in the UNIX world, root is the administrator account. So a rootkit is a kit of software that has root or administrative level access.

If you regularly read our newsletter, you may remember that with Windows Vista and Windows 7, you can get either a 32 bit version of a 64 bit version. There was a 64 bit version of Windows XP, but it was never marketed or sold to consumers. However, the 64 bit version of Windows 7 is very popular. I mention the 32 bit versus 64 bit versions for good reason. While 32 bit software will usually work on a 64 bit system, 32 bit drivers generally will not work on a 64 bit system.

What this means is that in order for a 64 bit system to become infected with a rootkit, the rootkit has to specifically be for 64 bit systems. In the past, rootkits were only 32 bit, causing some people to foolishly believe 64 bit systems were not susceptible to rootkit infections. But recently 64 bit rootkits have begun to surface.

All of this does not change our recommendation on your strategy for protecting your computer. If you run one of our recommended security solutions (http://www.ct-cp.com/?p=797) and make sure that security solution stays up to date and never expires, then you have gone a long way towards preventing a rootkit infection. You should also be vigilant on installing Windows updates as well because these updates usually plug security holes in Windows that can be used to infect your computer.

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On a Computer, a cookie is a small file where a web site can store information. Most cookies are good. They help the website and they help you. However, like any good thing, they can be abused. Cookies can be used to track what you do on the web or even save some information about you. These types of cookies are called tracking cookies.

You can go into your web browsers settings and delete all of your cookies. There are also free utilities that will delete all of your cookies for you. But since most cookies are good, you don’t really want to go and blow away all of your cookies. You only want to blow away the tracking cookies. The good news is that most security software will locate and delete tracking cookies during a scan.

However, there’s something new in the world of cookies. If you have been reading this newsletter very long, you have read about Flash. Flash is an add-on to your web browser which allows a website to do all sorts of cool things. Flash is very common. If you don’t have flash, there are a lot of websites that won’t display properly on your computer. We have also told you in the past how important it is to keep flash up to date for security reasons.

Now, some websites are using a feature in flash to do the same job as tracking cookies. Currently, security software does not find and delete flash cookies. And no utilities I know of can find and delete them either. In addition, you can’t go into your web browser’s options and delete them.

There is something you can do, though. You can run the Adobe Flash Player Settings Manager and tell it not to allow third-party flash content to store data on your computer. Here’s how to do it.

First, go to this link:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager03.html

On the left side, click on “Website Storage Settings panel”

Now you will see a list of all of the flash cookies on your computer. Most of them have names that are cryptic, but some have names you will recognize. Here, you can select one and delete it, or you can delete all of them.

If you want to prevent websites from saving any of this info in the future, then on the left side, click on “Global Storage Settings panel”

Now you will see a box with a checkmark in it and next to that it will say “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer.”

Click on that box to remove the check mark.

And you’re done!

There may be some drawbacks to changing this setting. For example, if you play an online game that uses flash, it may not be able to save your high score. If you find these drawbacks annoying, you can always go back into the Flash settings manager and change it back.

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Facebook is a great tool for keeping in touch with your friends and family. But like anything popular, it can be misused and attacked. If you are like most Facebook users, you wish there was a way to dislike something on Facebook. You can like something, so why can’t you dislike something?

Now there is a new scam that takes advantage of this. So if you see anything about a dislike feature on Facebook, ignore it. It’s a scam! 

In other news, Facebook now lets you share you whereabouts with your friends by letting you “Check in” to a location through Facebook Places. If you’re Like me, you may think, “I would never use that feature so I don’t need to worry about it.” But hold on there. Did you know that your friends can “Check you in” to places? It’s true. If one of your friends checked into a place, they could specify who else is there and they could list you. That is, unless you change some settings on Facebook.

So here is how to prevent others from sharing your location on Facebook.
First, login to your Facebook account and click on Account and then privacy settings. Now click on “Customize Settings”

In the first section which is called “Things I Share”, the last items are “Places I check in” and “Include me in ‘People Here Now’ after I check in”. For “Places I check in”, change it to “Only Me”. For the other option, click to remove the checkmark from the box next to Enable.

Now, lastly, go down to the section called “Things others share” and disable “Friends can check me in to Places”.

That’s it!

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You may be wondering what the difference is between consumer and enterprise security software. There is a big difference. The difference comes in how the software is installed, maintained, and monitored.

Enterprise Security software is targeted towards business and it makes it easy for one person to install, maintain, and monitor security software on many PC’s. In addition, enterprise security software is cheaper, per PC, than it would be to purchase a consumer license for each PC.

Let’s look at an example of the cost using Vipre Enterprise versus the consumer version of Vipre. Let’s say you have a small company with 10 PC’s. To purchase 10 individual licenses of the consumer version of Vipre for 1 year would be about $300. If you purchased a 10 seat license of Vipre Enterprise, it would cost $167.50. That’s about half the cost. In addition, the Enterprise version gives you a central place to install, monitor, and maintain Vipre on all of the PC’s. You don’t have to physically go to each PC to maintain it.

Now that you hopefully see the value in the Enterprise version of security software over consumer versions, you are probably expecting a list of Enterprise security software. But we aren’t going to do that. Of our recommended security software, only one offers an Enterprise version. Vipre. If you own or work at a business that has 5 or more PC’s, we recommend  that you switch to Vipre Enterprise as soon as possible. The security of the computers that run your business is nothing to fool around with. Do yourself, your business, and your employees a favor and switch to Vipre Enterprise as soon as possible.

We can assist you in the installation of Vipre Enterprise. If you don’t have  a server, we can even add  your computers to our Vipre Enterprise and we can also monitor and maintain the security of your system so you don’t have to worry about it.

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This is a roundup of security software packages. For the purposes of this article, we are focusing on consumer versions targeted at residential customers and small businesses that do not have a server.

After reading this article, see what security software you have and where it falls on the list. You may also want to forward this to your friends and family so they can see where their security software falls on the list.

We evaluated based on our own tests, personal experience, and reviews by other credible sources. The criteria used to evaluate these products includes:

1. Automation. We want to set it and forget it. It should automatically update, automatically scan, and automatically clean.

2. Configuration. Can we configure it the way we want to?

3. User interface. Does it make sense or is it confusing?

4. How well it prevent infections

5. How well it removes infections

6. Annoyance factor. We don’t want any pop-up ads. We don’t want it to constantly talk to us or ask us a lot of questions. Does it cause problems on our computer?

7. Performance. Does it slow down our computer?

8. Price. Is the price reasonable?

No security software gets a perfect score because none of them can completely protect your computer. Thousands of new infections come out every day. They just can’t keep up. But the better the protection, the less likely your computer is to become infected. But you don’t want to go too far and make it harder to use your computer. Computer security is a balancing act.

When you purchase security software, they usually come in different editions. You can generally get a full security suite or just the more basic components. Most people don’t need the full security suite. It adds a lot of features you don’t need and slows your computer down even more. We generally prefer the more basic packages with a few free utilities added in for extra protection.

We have organized this list of Security software into 3 categories. Not recommended, Neutral, and Recommended. In addition to these three categories of software, we are also including a section of free security add-ons that you will want to check out to help keep your computer safe from infections.

So without further Ado, here is the list!

Not Recommended

We don’t recommend using these products. If you have one of these products on your computer, we urge you switch to one of our recommended products as soon as possible.

• Avast
  There is a free version of Avast that just includes basic protection. There is the paid version for $40and then there is the Internet Security suite for $60. We don’t recommend any of them, especially the free version. None of them provide very good protection and can cause problems with your computer. In addition, it slows down your computer more than our recommended products.

• Avira Antivir (Free Edition)
  It’s free. In the past, Avira has been pretty good, but they haven’t kept up with changes in the industry. It no longer offers good enough protection against viruses and spyware.

• Bit Defender
  Costs $50 but you can put it on up to 3 PC’s. Unfortunately, it slows your computer way down and only provides OK protection.

• CA Internet Security
  It costs $70, and you can put it on up to 3 PC’s, but that’s more expensive than a Vipre Home Site license which costs $50 and you can put Vipre Home Site on as many PC’s as you want. It doesn’t provide adequate protection against viruses and spyware. Slows computer down way too much.

• Comodo
  Comodo makes an antivirus, firewall, anti-malware, anti spam, and other security products that are all free. We like their firewall. The other components provide OK protection, but not good protection. The biggest problem with it is all of the advertisements. It will even install other products without asking you. A big no-no. It will even change your homepage. Way too intrusive.

• Kaspersky
  Basic protection for $60 or a full security suite at $80, it provides good protection, but has a crummy user interface, slows down your computer too much and is way too expensive.

• McAfee
  They have basic protection for $40, Internet Security for $70, or what they call Total Protection for $80. This is the second most popular security product, but it still has too many problems for us to recommend it. It provides OK protection, but the protection  you get isn’t worth all of the problems you have to deal with. It has a terrible user interface, isn’t very configurable, and slows your computer down, and is too expensive.

• Norton or Symantec (versions prior to 2010)
  Norton security products are the most popular ones thanks to their superb marketing department. Too bad their product isn’t superb. Although it provides pretty good protection, it slows your computer WAY down and will also cause all sorts of major problems on your computer. This only applies to versions prior to the 2010 version. The 2010 version is better, but still not recommended.

• Panda Internet Security
  Basic protection for $50. Internet security suite for $80. You can put it on up to 3 PC’s, but again it’s more expensive than a Vipre Home Site license. Provides good protection but too intrusive and annoying. Slow performance too.

• PC Tools Spyware Doctor
  The basic version only protects against spyware, but it is only $30 and can be used on up to 3 computers, which is a very good price. There is a version that adds virus protection for $40 and can also be put on up to 3 computers. Although it offers excellent protection against spyware, the virus protection just isn’t very good.  The biggest problem with it, however, is that it slows your computer way down.

• Trend Micro Internet Security
  Only comes in an internet security package that costs $50. Slows your computer way down. Too intrusive. Not very good protection.

• Spybot Search and Destroy
  There was a time when we recommended Spybot Search and Destroy, but times have changed. This product is not kept up with the times. It only provides mediocre protection with an antiquated user interface. We do not recommend the free version or the paid version.

• Ad-Aware
  The story for Ad-Aware is similar to Spybot Search and Destroy. There was a time when we recommended it, but not anymore. Although Ad-Aware’s user interface is much better than Spybot’s, like Spybot, it only provides mediocre protection. We do not recommend the free or pro version. 

Neutral Products

These products offer pretty good protection, but have some other issues like user interface problems or slowing your computer down. If you have one of these products, then you probably don’t need to switch right away. You might want to wait until it’s up for renewal and then switch to one of our recommended products.

• ESET
  ESET’s antivirus/antispyware product which is called NOD32 provides very good protection at $40. They also have a product called Smart Security which, in addition to NOD32, adds a firewall and anti-spam. It costs $60. ESET didn’t make our recommended list for two reasons. First, we simply don’t like the user interface. And second, this product tends to slow the computer down more than our recommended products. It provides good protection, though. If you don’t mind their user interface and your computer doesn’t seem slow, then keep it. Otherwise, we recommend replacing it with something else when it expires.

• Norton Internet Security 2010
  It costs $70, but can be installed on up to 3 PC’s. It’s the most popular security product, and has moved up from Not Recommended to Neutral  with their 2010 version thanks to their efforts to improve the product. In the past, Norton has severely slowed down computers and caused a lot of issues. They still have some work to do, though. In addition, we don’t like the user interface. It provides pretty good protection, though. If you have an older version of Norton, we recommend dumping it as soon as possible for a better product. If you have the 2010 product, replace it when it expires.

• AVG Free Edition
  Good basic protection. Some nagging about upgrading to paid version, but not much. If your computer gets only light use, this package might be OK. But if you surf to websites you aren’t familiar with or get a lot of spam, you may need better protection. When major revisions of AVG come out, the free version won’t automatically update to it. You will have to manually download and upgrade.

• Microsoft Security Essentials (free)
  Microsoft bombed with “Windows One Care” security product which was a terrible product in all respects. They discontinued that product and have now released a free security product called Security Essentials. Sounds very basic, doesn’t it? The jury is still out on this product as it is still very new.

Special note about free versions of security software
Free versions of security software usually suffer from one of two problems. The most common problem is that they just don’t have the funding to keep up. The second common problem is that free versions are stripped down version of the paid version. They just don’t have the features needed to provide adequate protection. That’s why free security software is not a good idea for most people.

The one caveat to this is Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft certainly has the funding to make Security Essentials good. It’s not a security suite, so it doesn’t have features like a firewall, anti-spam, and so forth, but it has the basic features that are needed. The biggest problem with it is that it’s so new, we just don’t know yet. Given Microsoft’s track record with Windows Defender and OneCare, it’s hard to be optimistic. However, we are optimistic at this time. But we can’t yet recommend it until more testing is done.
 

Recommended Products

Although not perfect, these products are the best available in our experience. These are the products we use on our systems and the products we recommend to all of our friends, family, and customers.

They are in order starting with our highest recommendation

• Vipre
  Vipre comes in two flavors. For $30 you get Vipre which protects against viruses, spyware, and rootkits. For $40, you can get Vipre Premium which adds a firewall and other protection. For $50 you can get a Vipre home site license which lets you put Vipre on as many PC’s in your home as you want. You aren’t limited to 3 like many products. The Home Site License for Vipre Premium is $60. Like anything, it’s not perfect, but it provides the best protection for the money and the best features. The only feature it doesn’t include is anti-spam. The makers of Vipre, Sunbelt Software, stand behind their product too. If your computer gets infected, you can call them and they will help you remove the infection at no charge.

  You can purchase Vipre or Vipre Premium from us or from sunbeltsoftware.com.

• AVG
  AVG comes in several different flavors. There’s AVG ($35), AVG plus Firewall ($50), and AVG Internet Security($55). AVG offers very good protection, but it’s a little more expensive than Vipre and a lot more expensive than SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes. However, AVG’s Internet Security includes anti-spam protection which is not included with Vipre Premium. There is no equivalent to Vipre’s Home Site License, but you can purchase multiple computer licenses at a discount. For example, AVG Internet Security for 3 PC’s is $70.

  You can purchase AVG products from us or at avg.com.

• SuperAntiSpyware
  The interface isn’t as nice as other products. It’s not as polished and is lacking some minor features. But although it’s not fancy, it does an excellent job of protecting and cleaning. At $30, the price is nice. Even nicer is the lifetime subscription you can get for an additional $10. No more annual renewals! There is a free edition, but it doesn’t provide active protection and can only scan for and remove infections after the fact. So the free version should not be your primary protection, although it can help remove infections should your computer become infected.

  You can purchase SuperAntiSpyware from us or at superantispyware.com.

• Malwarebytes
  There’s a good chance you never heard of this one, but its good protection. They don’t offer a full Internet Security Suite, but for good basic protection, it’s very good. And at $25, it’s one of the cheapest ones out there. There is a free edition, but it doesn’t provide active protection and can only scan for and remove infections after the fact. So the free version should not be your primary protection, although it can help remove infections should your computer become infected.

  You can purchase Malwarebytes at malwarebytes.com. 

Free Add On Products

These are free products that you can add to your system that boost your security.

• Threatfire
  Threatfire is totally different from every other security product in this article. It does not use virus definitions. It tries to detect infections based on behavior. This product is not good enough protection on its own. Their website shows how running Threatfire in addition to your regular security software will make your PC more secure. Our testing has indicated that it may help, but may not be worth the performance hit you take. If you want the extra bit of protection and don’t mind a little degradation in performance, you might want to give it a try.

• Ad Blocking Software
  Some security software includes ad blocking functionality, but most don’t. None of our recommended security products include it. We recommend blocking ads because many infections get on computers through third party web banner advertisements. But never fear, you can get free ad blocking software for your browser. Another benefit to this add-on is that it will speed up your web surfing.

  For Internet Explorer, we recommend Simple Adblock which you can get at simple-adblock.com.

  For Mozilla Firefox, we recommend Adblock Plus which you can add from the Firefox add-ons window in Firefox.

  For Google Chrome recommend AdBlock by Gundlach which you can add from the extensions window in Chrome.

• Website Rating Software
  Website rating software will put an indicator next to each website in your search results to let you know if a website is generally safe. This will help keep you from accidentally going to an infected website that may attempt to infect your computer. One of our recommended products, AVG, includes this functionality, but most security software does not. But there is a very good product that we recommend that does this and it’s free. It’s called Web Of Trust (WOT). You can get it by going to mywot.com.
   

Computer security is a balancing act. Not enough security and your computer can easily become infected. Too much, and your computer can become slow and hardly usable.

The bottom line is that we recommend you use one of our recommended products and then add on ad blocking and website rating software. Alternatively, you may want to add on Threatfire if your system can handle the extra load.

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One of the great things about having a laptop is being able to connect to public wi-fi and get online when you are at the airport, the coffee shop, hotel, or many other places. But like many great things, using public wi-fi has risk.

When you are at home or work and you use wireless your wireless connect is (or at least, should be) encrypted. If you have any kind of wireless security in place, then the information flowing to and from  your laptop over the wireless connection is encrypted. However, when you use public wi-fi, this is not the case. That means that anyone with the right software can intercept your wireless signal and read the information flowing to and from your laptop.

Internet Explorer can transmit and receive information securely, but when it does this is up to the website you are on. Most websites use encryption when you are entering your login name and password or when you are entering sensitive information like credit card numbers and personal information. But pretty much all other cases are not secure. For example, if you use yahoo mail, when you enter your login information, that is secure, but once logged in, it’s not secure so someone could intercept that and read your email.

This is one webmail provider that does keep it secure while you are reading your email. That’s Google mail. So if you use Gmail, it’s encrypted the whole time. If you use an email client like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, Incredimail, and so forth, those are not secure over public wi-fi.

Another risk of using public wi-fi is that someone might be able to directly connect to your laptop. Another risk, although low-tech, is that someone could be looking over your shoulder to see what you are doing.

Below are some safety tips for using public wi-fi.

• We recommend a good software firewall. If you have XP, the firewall built-in to XP isn’t good enough for public wi-fi. Get yourself a good firewall like Sunbelt Firewall. Vipre Premium includes Sunbelt Firewall. Some versions of AVG have a firewall. A good free firewall is Comodo Firewall, but installing it is tricky or you end up with a lot of software you don’t want. If you have Vista or Windows 7, that firewall is fine.

• Turn off peer to peer (also known as as-hoc) wireless connections. How you do this depends on what version of Windows you have, which wireless card you have, and which wireless utility you are using. There are too many different combinations for us to include instructions on doing this for all of them. If you want instructions for how to do this, let us know. We can remote into your computer and show you how to do it. 

• Turn off File and Printer Sharing.
  This will help prevent someone from snooping around on your hard drive. The instructions for doing this will vary depending on which version of Windows you have. If you want to know how to do this, reply to this email, let us know which version of Windows you have (XP, Vista, Windows 7) and ask for instructions and we will email them to you. 

• Many companies use VPN. VPN is a way to connect to a remote network. VPN connections are encrypted and secure. If your company provides  you with VPN access to their network, connect to it when you are using public wi-fi and that will secure your wireless.

  If your company doesn’t provide VPN, or you want the same protection for your personal laptop, then go to hotspotshield.com. This free service uses VPN to provide this type of security.

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We’ve said many times how important it is to keep an eye on your security software to make sure it’s working properly. But did you know that it’s normal for some security software to turn itself off briefly from time to time? It’s true!

Your security software downloads updates every day. There are two types of updates. Definitions and program updates. Definition updates usually get downloaded at least once a day, sometimes more often. Program updates are much less frequent, but do happen fairly regularly. Program updates are more complicated to install because your security software is running. A program that is running cannot be updated while it is running. Security software companies usually handle this in one of two ways.

The most common way to handle it is to make you reboot your computer. As the computer is booting back up, it installs the program updates before the security software starts running. This method is good because your computer isn’t running unprotected for any amount of time. The drawback is that your computer use is interrupted by the reboot.

The other way to handle program updates is to stop the security software from running, update it, and then start the security software back up. This is nice in that you don’t have to reboot your computer. The drawback is that during the time it’s updating, your computer is not fully protected. During that time, you should not access websites or read email. Usually, the period of time that the security software is shut down while it’s updating is a very short period of time. But sometimes major updates take longer.

Earlier this week, there was a program update to Vipre that took longer than normal to apply. Several of you noticed Vipre was not running and contacted us about it. Another small problem with this week’s update was that on some systems, Vipre’s active protection did not come back on after the update. This is easily fixed by opening Vipre and turning active protection back on. This illustrates, however, how important it is for you to keep an eye on your security software. We applaud those of you who noticed this.

The lesson is that anytime you notice your security software is not working, Try to turn it back on. If it won’t, wait 10-20 minutes. During this wait time, don’t access websites or read your email. This will give your security software time to finish updating itself, if that is what caused it to be turned off.

If after waiting 10-20 minutes your security software isn’t working, try to turn it back on again. If that doesn’t work, reboot. After rebooting, if it’s still not working, then you have 3 options. You can try to uninstall and reinstall your security software (make sure you know your license key before doing this), call the manufacturer’s technical support line, or give us a call.

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What do you usually do with your old computer? There are lots of options. You can give it to a friend. Donate it to a charity, school, or church. You can toss it in the trash. You can take it to Goodwill. Before you do anything with your old computer, stop and think about what information is stored on your computer. Most computers have at least your name, address, email address, passwords, websites visited, pictures, documents, and things like that. Email and documents in particular can contain additional identifying information like date of birth, social security number, account numbers, and so forth.

You may have seen a story in the news lately about copiers having hard drives in them. People can get these hard drives and see most, if not all, of the documents that were copied. Many of them contain sensitive information. It’s the same with computers. There are many stores of people getting sensitive information from people’s old computers.

Before you rid yourself of your old computer, we recommend that you do one of two things. Either take the hard drive out and keep it, or have us wipe the hard drive. Simply deleting files or formatting the hard drive isn’t enough. The files can still be access if you know what you are doing. Reinstalling Windows won’t help either. The hard drive needs to be wiped with a special utility that will make it nearly impossible for anyone to recover the files. Once that has been done, you can install Windows or just get rid of the computer and let the next person worry about installing Windows.

Notice I said nearly impossible. The only way to 100% guarantee that nobody can access your information is to shred the hard drive. But hard drive shredders are not very common and they are expensive. And for most situations, shredding a hard drive is not necessary. A Department of Defense (DOD) compliant wipe is all that is needed.

By the way, if you have given us an old computer to recycle, rest assured your data is safe. We either still have the drive, or we wiped it clean and sent it to Goodwill.

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There were a whole slew of Windows updates this week. It doesn’t happen very often, but Windows updates can render a system unbootable. That happened earlier this year to one of our customers, and it happened again this week to a different customer. In both cases, we were able to repair it and apply all of the updates and get their systems working again. But whenever this happens, we always get the same question.

Is there any way to turn off Windows Updates so this doesn’t happen again?

The answer is yes, but we don’t recommend it. The chances of a windows update slamming your system like that are pretty remote. Yes, it does happen, but not very often. The updates you get for Windows are mostly security updates. If you turned off Windows updates, you would eliminate the slight chance of an update messing up your computer, but you would dramatically increase the chances of your computer becoming infected.

The bottom line is, would you rather have a slight chance that an update to Windows will mess up your system, or a very good chance that your system will become infected? I choose the slight chance and I recommend you do the same.

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