How to Use An Antivirus Boot Disc or USB Drive to Ensure Your Computer is Clean

Why You Should Use an Antivirus Boot Disc

Antivirus boot discs deal with this by approaching the malware from outside Windows. You boot your computer from a CD or USB drive containing the antivirus and it loads a specialized operating system from the disc. Even if your Windows installation is completely infected with malware, the special operating system won’t have any malware running within it.
This means the antivirus program can work on the Windows installation from outside it. The malware won’t be running while the antivirus tries to remove it, so the antivirus can methodically locate and remove the harmful software without it interfering.
Any rootkits won’t be able to set up the tricks they use at Windows boot time to hide themselves from the rest o the operating system. The antivirus will be able to see the rootkits and remove them.
These tools are often referred to as “rescue disks.” They’re meant to be used when you need to rescue a hopelessly infected system.

Bootable Antivirus Options

As with any type of antivirus software, you have quite a few options. Many antivirus companies offer bootable antivirus systems based on their antivirus software. These tools are generally free, even when they’re offered by companies that specialized in paid antivirus solutions. Here are a few good options:

• avast! Rescue Disk – We like avast! for offering a capable free antivirus with good detection rates in independent tests. avast! now offers the ability to create an antivirus boot disc or USB drive. Just navigate to the Tools -> Rescue Disk option in the avast! desktop application to create bootable media.
• BitDefender Rescue CD – BitDefender always seems to receive good scores in independent tests, and the BitDefender Rescue CD offers the same antivirus engine in the form of a bootable disc.
• Kaspersky Rescue Disk – Kaspersky also receives good scores in independent tests and offers its own antivirus boot disc.

These are just a handful of options. If you prefer another antivirus for some reason — Comodo, Norton, Avira, ESET, or almost any other antivirus product — you’ll probably find that it offers its own system rescue disk.

How to Use an Antivirus Boot Disc

Using an antivirus boot disc or USB drive is actually pretty simple. You’ll just need to find the antivirus boot disc you want to use and burn it to disc or install it on a USB drive. You can do this part on any computer, so you can create antivirus boot media on a clean computer and then take it to an infected computer.
Insert the boot media into the infected computer and then reboot. The computer should boot from the removable media and load the secure antivirus environment. (If it doesn’t, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS or UEFI firmware.) You can then follow the instructions on your screen to scan your Windows system for malware and remove it. No malware will be running in the background while you do this.

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Antivirus boot discs are useful because they allow you to detect and clean malware infections from outside an infected operating system. If the operating system is severely infected, it may not be possible to remove — or even detect — all the malware from within it.

REXOFCYBER Explains: Why You Should Perform Clean Installs, Not Upgrades

Whether you’re installing the latest version of Windows or upgrading your Linux distribution, most geeks agree that you should probably perform a clean installation rather than try your luck with an upgrade.
New operating systems versions want to reduce the pain of upgrading and offer to bring your old files, settings, and programs along with you through an upgrade, but this can often cause problems.

Upgrade vs. Clean Installs on Windowsstartup program

To a less-experienced user, an upgrade seems like the best type of install. If you want to install Windows 8 on a PC with Windows 7 already on it, you can perform an upgrade installation to bring many of your programs, settings, and files with you rather than reinstalling your programs, changing your computer settings, and copying over your files when you’re done.
In theory, an upgrade will save you time because you can skip much of the set-up work afterwards. In practice, upgrades have often caused problems. When you perform a clean installation, you get a fresh copy of Windows without any clutter. When you upgrade, Windows must attempt to bring your programs and settings with you. You won’t end up with a clean copy of Windows – you’ll end up with the latest version of Windows with your old programs and settings copied over.  Files you haven’t used in years, registry entries created by long since-uninstalled programs, and other junk will remain on your fresh copy of Windows. Some applications may not be compatible and may be uninstalled during the upgrade process or may not work afterwards – you’ll have to reinstall some things anyway.
Some benchmarks have found that upgrade installs perform more slowly than clean installs, which isn’t surprising. An upgrade install might have old bloatware and startup program running in the background.
We don’t encourage running a registry cleaner and smart users shouldn’t have to reinstall Windows on a regular basis. However, when you’re switching to a new operating system, it’s the ideal time to start things out on the right foot with a fresh operating system.

How to Clean-Install Windows

To perform a clean installation of Windows, don’t select the Upgrade option when installing Windows. Select the Custom: Install Windows only (advanced) option and select the hard drive you want to install Windows on. You can even perform a clean install with an Upgrade license. The Upgrade license just requires that your computer must already have a valid license for a previous version of Windows; it doesn’t require that you perform an Upgrade installation.
Be sure that you have backup copies of all your important files before performing a clean installation, as a clean install will wipe your system partition.

Linux-Specific Problems

Clean installs are also useful on Linux distribution We’ll refer to Ubuntu in particular here, as it’s the most popular distribution, but much of this also applies to other distributions, such as Fedora.
Mark Shuttleworth, who created Ubuntu, recently wrote that “Upgrading today is possible, but to keep the system clean over multiple successive upgrades requires an uncommonly high level of skill with APT.”
In other words, problems can also occur when you upgrade your Linux distribution. A new version of Ubuntu may have dropped a particular package from the default system because it offers duplicate functionality, but such packages will not necessarily be removed from your system during an upgrade. If you have packages from third-party repositories installed, they may prevent you from upgrading. Various package dependency problems can occur and old configuration settings may not be overwritten properly with new default settings if you’ve customized them.
Just as old files, settings, and programs can persist on a Windows machine, the same thing can happen when you upgrade your Linux distribution.
There’s no doubt that Ubuntu’s upgrade process works much better than the upgrade process offered by many older Linux distributions, but it’s nowhere near perfect, as Mark Shuttleworth himself says.

How to Clean Install a Linux Distribution

When you see an upgrade notification, you don’t have to upgrade to the latest version of Ubuntu with the built-in too. You can download the Ubuntu installer from Ubuntu’s website and burn it to a disc (or put it on a USB drive) before installing the new version of Ubuntu over your previous version of Ubuntu.
As with Windows, you should ensure you have backup copies of your important files before installing the new Linux distribution over the previous Linux distribution.
startup program

The Previous Version Rule

Note that you can generally only upgrade from the previous version of an operating system. For example, you can upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows 7, but not from Windows XP. Likewise, you can upgrade to Ubuntu 12.10 from Ubuntu 12.04, but not Ubuntu 11.10 – although you could upgrade 11.10 to 12.04 and then upgrade it to 12.10, if you felt like living dangerously.

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Upgrading is tempting, and upgrade installs are becoming more reliable with each new operating system version release. However, clean installs are still the way to go if you want a fresh system without clutter from previous versions of your operating system. A new operating system release is a good excuse to start fresh with a clean OS, anyway.

5 Steps to Secure Your Wireless Network

In this post, we will discuss 5 effective ways by which you can secure your wireless network and protect your system from hackers. Honestly speaking, securing your wireless network isn’t difficult at all. The main objective of securing wireless network is to restrict others from gaining unauthorized access to your system. Given below are 5 steps by which you can secure your wireless network.
 
 

Know how to organize your wireless router

One of the most essential things you need to know is how to manage your wireless router. That is, knowing how to manage your configuration settings. Most wireless router vendors use a standard address which you can type in the address bar of your web browser. The address looks something like this: http://192.163.4.1 or may be slightly different. The address differs from one vendor to another. You can find your vendor’s address by looking at the user’s manual that will be given to you at the purchase of the wireless router. If you’ve lost it, then you may either Google-search for your vendor’s user manual or contact your vendor’s customer care.

Secure your wireless router login with a secure password

By the end of step 1, you’ve probably figured out how to manage your wireless router. The next step is to keep a safe and secure password for your admin account. This will ensure that no hacker or external user can hack or break into your wireless network. For this, you need to go to the “Administrative settings” section where you will have the option to change your password. There is a built-in database where your default username and passwords are saved. Here you can find all the default login details of all brands of routers, modems, switches, and other equipments that are a part of your wireless home network – regardless of whether your network system is wired or wireless. The general location information is something like this: http://www.cirt.net/pswds.  Change your default login id and password to a strong and secure one.

Modify your SSID and disable the SSID broadcast

If you are not aware, the SSID is nothing but the default name given to your wireless router. The general SSID would be the word “default” or “your brand name” (e.g. Linksys). Changing your SSID will not only make your wireless network more safe and secure but will also restrict neighboring sources from knowing which network you are currently connected to. By changing your SSID name, you are making your wireless network completely yours and blocking all other sources from gaining entry into your network.

Switching off or disabling your SSID broadcast is another great idea to make your network much more secure and stronger. Also by disabling the SSID, you don’t have to worry about remembering the name of your network each time you login. Switching off your SSID broadcast makes it easy for the equipments in the network to be accessible to each other within a given range while going invisible to people outside the network.

Limit the number of login attempts

By limiting the number of user addresses or login attempts, you are allowing a very bleak chance for the hackers to try and crack your system – it’s highly unlikely though. Already enough security measure4s have been taken and this one is just to shield them.

Get assistance from the big boys

If your information is highly confidential and is worth a ton, then consider having a wireless hardware security system in place. For example, AirDefense is one such server application that intends to connect to the security sensors located near your access points. Systems like these ensure that your wireless network is completely safe from hackers, but they aren’t cheap – the price for these applications ranges from $10,000 to $100,000, depending on the number and type of sensors that you need.

[Quick Tip] Run Notepad as Admin to Edit System Files Without Errors

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Recently I was trying to modify one of my system files on Windows and I ran across few obstructions. I was logged in to my machine as the administrator and navigated to the file location. Then I opened it with Notepad, made few changes and tried saving it. I got an error message like the one show in the image below.
I had no clue why that should happen because (as I already said) I was logged in as the administrator.

It looks like Notepad also has to be run as an administrator if you wish to make changes to a system file. So, here’s what solves the problem.

Step 1: Search for Notepad from the Start menu or navigate to a place where you might have pinned it. Right-click on the .exe and choose to Run as administrator.

Step 2: Open the desired system file from this instance of Notepad by using Ctrl+O (for me it was my Hosts file), make your changes and hit Ctrl + S.
Your changes should save without any error or problem. Hope that helps.

Windows 8 Quick Tip: How To Enable and Show Administrative Tools on Start Screen

Administrative Tools are a bunch of useful admin tools for those power users who need to better manage their Windows systems. The full list of tools can be found and accessed through Control Panel, System and Security, and Administrative Tools. But if you have the needs to access them quite frequently, you can enable and have them shown right on the Start Screen on Windows 8.
And here is how:
Firstly, bring out Settings Charm by either using the upper right hot corner or pressing Win + I (i) combination, and select Tiles.

And then, move the Show administrative tools slider to the right.

The change takes affect immediately. The administrative tools are shown up on the Start Screen right away. Now you can customize them by grouping all tools in one group. Later on, when you fell no need having them on Start Screen, simply move the slider back to the left, which will remove all administrative tools from the Start Screen.

Working Of Zenmap ( Network Scanning Tool )

 

Zenmap is the official graphical user interface (GUI) for the Nmap Security Scanner. It is a multi-platform, free and open-source application designed to make Nmap easy for beginners to use while providing advanced features for experienced Nmap users. Frequently used scans can be saved as profiles to make them easy to run repeatedly. A command creator allows interactive creation of Nmap command lines. Scan results can be saved and viewed later. Saved scans can be compared with one another to see how they differ. The results of recent scans are stored in a searchable database.

CHOSEN SETUP
As Zenmap runs on a windows/Linux so i chose the following setup :
 Windows  OS – Windows 7 installed on a system
 Version- Zenmap 6 (http://nmap.org/dist/nmap-6.00-setup.exe)
 Scanning
Begin Zenmap by typing zenmap in a terminal or by clicking the Zenmap icon in the desktop environment.
Firstly, select the Target. Target could be any domain name or the IP Address, so right now my target is  10.0.0.2.



Profile
Profile combo box. Profiles exist for several common scans. After selecting a profile the Nmap command line associated with it is displayed on the screen. Of course, it is possible to edit these profiles or create new ones.
It is also possible to type in an Nmap command and have it executed without using a profile. Just type in the command and press return or click “Scan”.
 In Zenmap there are 10 Types of Profile :
a.  INTENSE SCAN
Command = nmap -T4 -A 10.0.0.2
Description  = An intense, comprehensive scan. The -A option enables OS detection (-O), version detection (-sV), script scanning (-sC), and traceroute (–traceroute). Without root privileges only version detection and script scanning are run. This is considered an intrusive scan.



SCAN RESULT TABS
Each scan window contains five tabs which each display different aspects of the scan results. They are:
a) Nmap Output
b) Ports / Hosts
c) Topology
d) Host Details
Each of these are discussed in this section:
NMAP OUTPUT
The “Nmap Output” tab is displayed by default when a scan is run. It shows the familiar Nmap terminal output.
PORT/HOSTS
When a service is selected, the “Ports / Hosts” tab shows all the hosts which have that port open or filtered. This is a good way to quickly answer the question “What computers are running HTTP?”



TOPOLOGY

The “Topology” tab is an interactive view of the connections between hosts in a network.



HOST DETAILS
The “Host Details” tab breaks all the information about a single host into a hierarchical display. Shown are the host’s names and addresses, its state (up or down), and the number and status of scanned ports. The host’s uptime, operating system, OS icon. When no exact OS match is found, the closest matches are displayed.