In our line of work, we spend a lot of time securing our clients by setting up firewalls, locking down servers, installing antispam, antispyware and antivirus software and more; but do you ever think about the security of your business?

Think about this for a second. What would happen if your main business computer and its backups were stolen and how much damage would it do to your business? Your emails, documents, customer and account database are all gone. It would be devastating to just about any business. In this article, we’ll show you how to secure your own business.
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A BIOS password is a protection measure that can be used to stop someone powering up a computer system or making changes in some of the computers most sensitive areas. Many big name computer manufacturers such as Dell and HP lock the customers out of this area because they don’t want the customer changing anything and potentially damaging the machine (which the manufacturer may have to warranty). However, when someone like a computer technician or hardware enthusiast needs to make some hardware changes to the computer, they will need to access the BIOS. Here are some methods to bypass or remove a BIOS password.
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At some point or another in a PC technicians career, a client is going to forget their Windows password and its up to the computer technician to fix it. Essentially, we have to break into the clients computer for them. This is how we do it.
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As a computer technician, my clients frequently ask me “Why do people create computer viruses?”, especially after I have been called out to remove a virus from their computer. This is what I tell them.
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Did you know there was a way to test anti-virus/anti-malware applications to make sure they are working correctly? Well, there is. “Eicar” is a string of code which most antivirus applications detect as a virus, typically with an obvious name like EICAR-AV-Test. In the past, each antivirus vendor had their own test code to set off their product. However in recent years the Eicar test file has become somewhat of an industry standard and most major antivirus software will spot it. In this article, we’ll tell you what it can test and show you how to make a test file.
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Most experienced computer users know how adware and spyware is spread. Typically free programs that are designed for a certain purpose such as KaZaA (for downloading music) are bundled with other applications which contain adware or spyware. A new threat on the scene is called “Rogueware”, Rogueware are meaningful files which in reality can be quite malicious. The most common type of Rogueware are fake anti virus/adware/spyware progams that once installed, say you have lots of viruses/malware installed and in order for the program to remove them you must pay for the full version. In the past, these programs typically spread by advertising on other sites with banners saying things like “1023 Viruses detected on your computer! Click here to fix it now!”.

Recently, one of our Technibble forum members, Buzz; spotted a pattern in posts across a few forums he visited and reported it to us. It appears to be another method of spreading rogueware.
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I wrote earlier about keyloggers, and why they should not be used. Now, I want to focus more on the business environment, and look at keyloggers from a security and confidentiality perspective.
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I’ve seen a lot of talk recently about using key loggers. For those not familiar with the term, these are programs or pieces of hardware which record all of the keystrokes entered by a user at a computer, storing them for later retrieval.

Clearly these devices have uses such as obtaining passwords, bank login details, credit card numbers, and so forth, but also they can be used to monitor activities on a computer. This is the kind of use I wish to discuss today.
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An enormous number of people set their web browser, e-mail client, and other software, to store their login details. Then, they leave the computer unattended for maybe hours at a time, often without locking the workstation first. I surely do not need to spell out how this could affect security.
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There are plenty of people in the corporate world that know little bit about computer security. Companies will often tell their employees to have strong passwords with both letters and numbers and not something easily guessable such as a child’s name or birthdate.
There are also many home users who feel their computer is safe because they are running the latest Norton Antivirus, have all the latest Windows updates and only buy from online sites with the little SSL lock.
Here is a fact for those users who feel safe; a good computer technician can bypass all of this with great ease, sometimes within a matter of minutes.
Whether you are a computer technician or just a computer user, this guide will show you how to properly lock down a computer.
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