AskBillFirst – Non-Tech Speak Technology Blog

My monthly technology newsletter, the 11th issue, is available – http://tinyurl.com/macuv5. Additional issues can be found at my website, www.askbillfirst.com

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With the most recent patches and updates from Microsoft, I received a lot of questions on which ones are safe to install and which ones should be avoided. I wrote about this last year and will revisit that post below.

Microsoft introduced the concept of Patch Tuesday a few years ago. The idea is that security patches are accumulated over a period of one month, and then dispatched all at once on the second Tuesday of the month. Windows Update is a service that provides updates for the operating system and its installed components. Microsoft Update is an optional feature that can be enabled to provide updates for other Microsoft software installed on a Windows computer, such as Office. These updates can come anytime throughout the month.

If your computer is setup to automatically download and install updates, you will get any and all updates and patches, both good and bad. By default, the automatic settings will check for updates at 3:00 in the morning, every morning. If you turn your computer off at night, it never has a chance to check for updates so if you want to keep the automatic settings, you should change the settings to a time when you know the computer will be on. To change the settings, open the Control Panel and double click on Security Center. At the bottom, you can choose to manage settings for Automatic Updates.

My recommendation is to change the setting to the second option, which is to download the updates but let me choose when to install them. What happens then is that the updates will download and there will be a yellow shield down on the right by the clock. When I double click on it, I will have the option for an “Express Install” or a “Custom Install”. I always choose the custom install. That choice lets me pick which updates and patches to install.

I will always install security patches and program patches, but I never install new service packs when they’re first available. I’ll uncheck those and install the rest. I’ll continue to uncheck them until I know they are safe to install.

Just to be clear, when I see that shield, I will always check what’s downloaded and install what’s appropriate. The bad guys out there wait for the patches to come out also so they can create programs that hit all computers that aren’t patched. Lately, that attack will come the day that the patches are released so it is very important to install them.

Every so often, you will get a notice from another program, such as Adobe, that it has an update available. Should you install those as well? I’d say yes, since virus writers look for holes in most of the popular programs that people will have on their computers and will attack those programs as well.

I know it’s a hassle to do these updates, but do them since it’s more of a hassle cleaning an infected computer.

NOTE: One other important matter; create a system restore point before doing any updates. That way, if an update messes up the computer, you’ll be able to restore it to the point just before you did the updates. For instructions on creating a restore point in Vista, click here, For XP, click here. You can download a great document from Microsoft for securing your Vista computer here.

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The other day, I was sitting with a friend who had her laptop on. I noticed that the fan was going non-stop and it was making quite a bit of noise.

Knowing that desktops and laptops both suck up dust and dirt, I knew that that was most likely causing the problem, making it to run loud and hot. I also knew that if it continued that way, it was only a matter of time before the machine would start overheating and locking up.

Fortunately, this is very easy to fix. What is needed is a small screwdriver and a can of compressed air, which you can pick up at Radio Shack or electronics store.

What I did was to turn off the laptop, unplug the power cord, turn it over, and remove the battery. On some laptops,  there may be an access panel on the bottom close to an air vent on the side or back of the laptop. Unscrew the panel and remove it. You should see the fan right underneath.

Now it’s time to blow out the dust.  Hit the fan in short bursts from lots of different angles, making sure to blow most frequently in the direction of the air vent. If there isn’t a panel, spray through the air vents.

After blowing a fairly substantial amount of dust out of the laptop, I replaced the panel and battery and powered up the system.  If your laptop is more than a year or two old, it’s probably overdue for a similar cleaning.

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Spam now accounts for 90.4 percent of all e-mail, according to a report released Monday from security vendor Symantec. This means that 1 out of every 1.1 e-mails is junk. The report also notes that spam shot up 5.1 percent just from April to May.

Symantec’s May 2009 MessageLabs Intelligence report reveals other disturbing trends, as well. Rather than just hijack disreputable Web sites, cybercriminals now favor older and well-established domains to host their malware. The report says 84.6 percent of all domains blocked for malicious content are more than a year old. One type of domain now especially vulnerable to threats is social networking, since most of the sites’ content is created by users.

“Spammers using better-known and thus more widely trusted Web sites to host malware is reminiscent of the spammers who rely on well-known Web mail and social networking environments to host spam content,” said Paul Wood, Symantec’s MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst. “The trustworthy older domains can be compromised through SQL injection attacks while newer sites are more likely to be flagged as suspicious–a temporary site set up with the sole purpose of distributing spam and malware–and thus faster to get shut down.”

Where you live also determines when you’re spammed, says the report. For people in the U.S., spam hits its peak between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and then drops overnight. Europeans get a solid stream of spam throughout the day, while users in Asia-Pacific countries find most spam waiting for them in the morning. One reason for this trend, says the report, is that most spammers are at their busiest during U.S. working hours.

The popular CAPTCHA program, which asks the user to type in a series of random characters, is no longer proving as effective as once hoped. Many Web sites have relied on CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to ensure that accounts are created by actual human beings.

But criminals have now succeeded in generating profiles with random names, apparently by using automated CAPTCHA breakers. The report notes that some major Web sites are now exploring other ways to block automated accounts, such as using photographic images that a user must analyze.

Spam levels had dropped for a short while last year after the closure of several malware-hosting Internet providers. But spammers have since bounced back from those losses by rebuilding their networks.

Symantec’s MessageLabs Intelligence gathers research on spam and other malware from global data centers that track e-mails and Web pages. Symantec releases a new intelligence report each month.

via Report: Spam now 90 percent of all e-mail | Security – CNET News.

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