One day soon the purpose of wave after wave of computer viruses will be made clear when the Caller program wakes up all the sleeping zombies and raids every bank and brokerage firm the world over before sloppy system administrators have a chance to lock their systems down. It will be done on a weekend when no one is at work. Sunday 10/10/10 looks just a smidgen of a tad of a better bet for cyber Armageddon. The day before Columbus discovered America—or something like that.
So what can you, the intrepid Silver Cyber Surfer do against the coming onslaught? Bulletproof your surfboard of course. Make yourself invulnerable to the viruses. The only sure way to do that is to stay off the internet. It’s like that old joke where the patient says: Doctor it hurts when I do this. The doctor says: Don’t do that.
Staying off the internet may be a viable and even desirable option for some institutions. They should certainly consider it.
Second option, get on a really secure network wherein everyone knows who everyone is and all traffic is agreed upon in advance. Even if a virus were released in such a network if it does not correspond to the protocols it would not even be accepted. For instance, suppose the protocols where that all messages have to be sent in clear text with precise headers and any message that contains anything else, like a virus that does not correspond to clear text is rejected and the sender is banned from the network. Or everything must be encrypted by a cipher that will not encrypt viruses. Or no binary = no secrets. Meaning if you only communicate in a form in which nothing can be hidden, then you can’t get a computer virus.
Some companies use Virtual Private Networks or Virtual Protected Networks. The details of these systems can be company specific but it is certainly away to keep the riffraff out. If the company is good at hiring trustworthy people then the only people who can get the VPN are those you have no choice but to trust anyway. They are your coworkers. Old schools companies will sometimes use something called a WAN or Wide Area Network to connect their offices.
Another option that is more likely to be used by institutions than individuals is the See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil system. One computer listens but can not speak. Another computer speaks but can not listen. Yet another can neither speak nor hear. The speaker and listener are on the internet but they are on different local networks so they can not affect one another. The listener can receive email but his network never sends anything out to the internet. Any program that does try to send anything out to the internet is by definition a virus and results in the reformatting of the hard drive of the listener. He is a simple looker and listener so his systems can be reloaded with the fresh off the shelf software as often as necessary. Once an hour if must needs be.
The intermediary is deaf, dumb and blind to the internet. He is completely isolated. He is used to read and compose messages. He gets messages by courier from the reader. The messages are sent through umpteen layers of virus programs and then rendered in pure text with no binary whatsoever. When a flash drive is put into the deaf, dumb and blind computer if it contains any binary at all, it’s a virus so the computer automatically wipes itself by reformatting its hard drive and the offending flash drive and then reloading fresh software.
The speaker receives pure text messages from the deaf, dumb and blind computer. He can not hear or see anything on the internet. He just sends messages. Nothing from the internet has any power to reach him. He is not configured to receive.
The problem with such a secure network would be, how would you get those cool Viagra ads from that bikini model in Belgrade? Or meet new cyber friends?
The craze in cloud computing may offer individuals and companies a better solution. If you don’t have a hard drive, you can’t be infected. Let some computer on the internet be your hard drive. Let them keep the viruses out. They can hire experts who do nothing but create hunter-killer systems for viruses. In away, this is old school. Just have a dumb terminal on your desk or a keyboard, a mouse, a CPU and monitor and just enough ram to get you online. In fact, you could have a huge amount of ram. So much that you might be able to play games and watch movies without a hard drive. But since its read-only memory a virus can’t rewrite it.
If you insist on keeping a computer at home, then bullet proof your local network. It is possible to put your local computer network via software and hardware routers and firewalls configured in such a way as to make it difficult for viruses to get in and even more difficult for viruses to communicate with the outside world. Anytime any part of your computer wants to talk to the internet it has to ask permission first. Could be a pain for gamers but it might do the trick for those who don’t want their friends to be spammed by viruses that have taken over their computer.
Speaking of email, if you have an email program that stores messages on your hard drive, you have a ready-made, built-in source of viral infection. Consider using one of the free email services online. Again, let them worry about keeping viruses out of your email.
The usual rules apply. Put the strictest filters on your Google searches. There’s no such thing as perfectly good porn these days. Porn is full of viruses. Don’t open email sent to you and 10 people you don’t know. Don’t open email with attachments. If you get an email from banks where you don’t bank–delete them. If you get email saying some computer is sorry that your email didn’t go through—to someone you never heard of, delete it. If you get email about any get rich quick scam or work from home scam, delete it. Filter your email to keep out the Viagra ads.
Back up your important data. Keep your anti-virus and anti-malware software up to date. You should use difficult to remember passwords. If you are using a Microsoft computer let Microsoft update your computer. They are closing security holes. Don’t leave your computer unattended if you don’t want people doing the unexpected to it. Lock the screen or turn it off when you are away.
If you are surfing along a JavaScript message pops up that warns you about hideous viruses are slamming your computer as we speak. And it even appears to be scanning your computer; it is worth your life, or your computer’s life, to click on any link they present. It is a scam. These “helpful” folks will infect your computer with viruses and malware. To be on the safe side, prepare to lose all the information on any other windows you have open. These other windows may go away very soon. Immediately, out of respect for the soon to be cyber dead, perform the three-fingered salute know as CTRL-ALT-DELETE. Choose task manager. In the browser window that shows up select the line that represents the invitation to viral infection on it and click the End Task Button. You see trying to close these windows the conventional way can make even more JavaScript screens pop up. Warning, don’t do the foregoing if you are computer challenged. If you are computer challenged you may destroy your computer by shutting down something that wasn’t meant to be shut down and because you are computer challenged, you will blame others. So if you are computer challenged, back away form the computer and go watch television.
So is there really anything scary out there or am I just blowing smoke here? Try Googling the following:
Criminals steal Aussie house through hacked email.
Two thirds of cyber surfers fall victim to cyber crime world-wide.
Hackers steal credit card numbers from restaurant computers
Hackers steal $600K from a Catholic Church.
Hackers steal $1Million from University of Virginia.
Hackers steal PayPal Accounts of iTunes Users.
Heck, just look up “Hackers steal”. It’s only a matter of time.
Bulletproof Browsing
Cyber Invulnerability
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