I was doing my regular daily security alert review when my eye caught this message:

Hackers use secret  SEO  techniques (Google search engine tricks) to get

their link appear on page 1 Google search results for searches related to “labor day” special sales.

Imagine this: You live in the US, you just got your labor day vacation rolling, you pick up

a cool bear from the frig and head on to your laptop to stroll around the web, looking

for labor day deals. You always tend to buy when you are on vacation…right?

And then you see this nice link in Google search, click on it, and damn! It takes

you to web page warning you that your computer is infected with Viruses.

It then invites you to download a new Anti Virus - the best they have.

All this happens as you are pooling your credit card to get ready and buy something.

Shi*** you say, I can’t put my credit card online if I have a Virus.

Why didn’t that damn Anti Virus program I have warn me about that Virus.

And then you might actually download the new (fake) Anti Virus mentioned there and actually

get a Virus or a Trojan installed on your computer…

There are many reports showing that a large percentage of the Computer Viruses

are built and set to gather personal data that will be used later on by organized crime

groups - yeh, people used to call it the “Mafia“.

My question to you is, how many times you think the Mafia takes Google each week?

Here are several tips to get you going on having better defense against the Mafia online:

1. Consider shopping in web sites you already know and have in your bookmarks.

2. Even if you use Google or other search engine to look for deals, write down the details of the deal

and then search those details in the specific site they belong to (eBay, Best Buy, whatever)

3. Use tools that I sent you in the past such as Mcaffee Site Advisor.

4. Do not ACT according to websites you visit accidentally if  they warn that your computer is in danger.

I do not know a legitimate site that would do that. If you have concerns about your Anti Virus,

try out a new one, by looking in Computing Magazines such as those I publish on the Blog here.

Here is a free Anti Virus that I like: Avira Anti Virus at: http://www.free-av.com/en/download/index.html

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Computer Help - One of my friends called me today. She was worried her computer is getting broken into.

She told me she started getting warning notifications

of her Norton Security Suite saying “A remote system is attempting to access CHROME  on your computer”.

CHROME was the internet browser she was using (a program similar to Internet Explorer or Firefox).

Norton Firewall was asking if this remote computer should be allowed to access her internet browser…

She said that Norton defined this as a “Low” Security Risk and she asked if she should have confirmed to

approve this access or deny it.

I must say that I found many people who had this question and each time it was a different

program on their computer that the “remote system” was trying to access.

Sometimes it was MSN Messenger and sometimes “SVCHOST” and others.

Do you remember the “3 Little Pigs”? You probably heard it more than once when you were a kid…

One of the lesson was - you should not open the door for strangers no matter what they tell you.

Mommy should have the keys and does not need you to open the door for her.

If in doubt, close it out…

Same goes to Norton Anti Virus, Avira Anti Virus or any other similar Security solution - tell them to deny access.

What the error message “A remote system is attempting to access” or similar to it means is that your Firewall

detected a computer on the internet which is trying to “talk” to one of the programs on your computer - without

having the permission to start a conversation.

If the program in YOUR computer was to start a communication with a remote computer, such as a web site

or a service, your firewall would detect any response from that remote service as is and allow it.

But if your Firewall detects a trial to start communication that you did not ask for it will warn you.

In some cases where for example you have a “peer to peer” program such as those used for file sharing

(bearshare, bittorent and others) there might be a situation where other computers try to

start talking to your file sharing program.

A good program would tell your Firewall to allow such communication when you installed it, and therefore

you should have to warnings later on…

So bottom line, it looks like you should tell your firewall to deny such trials to access your computer.

Another question is what should you do if this alert pops up a lot…

I’d say, you can tell your firewall to automatically deny access in such cases without asking for your

intervention.

You can lower down the amount of such cases by setting your router to deny any access into

your network unless you started the communication.

That’s it for now…do let me know if you had such issues as well and if this article helps you!

P.S. I started reading PC Magazine Digital edition…saves trees and costs less!

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