Interview of the month!

This month Shaba a Finnish helper kindly agreed to be interviewed by myself online, using the IRC chat platform WyldRyde.

Shaba is a well respected member within the Anti-Malware community and is the recipient of the MVP: Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals with Consumer Security.

The interview:

Dakeyras:

What got you interested in the fight against malware Shaba?

Shaba:

I have always been interested about computers (have used them for 20 years). In summer 2005 I visited one Finnish forum and saw that local experts cleaned computers using as HijackThis as one of the tools. I followed them and soon started to help also myself.

Dakeyras:

How would you describe malware Shaba?

Shaba:

So malware means to me programs/files which are malicious or harmful to computer. Annoying programs (like adware) are also considered as malware. Adware means a program which shows ads.

Dakeyras:

Do you think giving the current trends of various rogue applications on the market this has a major impact on the average home user?

Shaba:

Rogue programs are not new thing. When I started to help people with cleaning there were already early variants of rogue programs in the wild. Amount has increased and it seems that it is sometimes hard for home users to recognize if program is bad or Google hit is helpful or malicious.

That's why I recommend to download programs only from trusted source.

Dakeyras:

Apart from the obvious ramifications of identity theft online via various mediums such as a keylogger or a back-door trogan/rootkit.What advice would you give for online safety as in regard to the aforementioned?

Shaba:

Well maybe most important thing would be to keep all programs which have internet access up-to-date and especially operating system.

Two most important programs to have are firewall and antivirus. You don't have to necessarily pay anything from them as there are good free alternatives as well.

There is no easier way to get infected than to download pirated software/games/music via p2p software. So everyone should pay attention what they download. Everything which looks like to be free is not.

You can also think to switch your browser to some free alternative. Firefox and Opera are very user-friendly and customizable. My favourite is noscript addon in firefox which prevents malicious scripts from loading.

A HOSTS file is also a good addition to security arsenal. A HOSTS file contains a list of well known sites which spread malware. Basically,this prevents your computer from connecting to those sites by redirecting them to 127.0.0.1 which is your local computer.

My personal favourite is MVPS hosts which can be found here.

Dakeyras:

Thank you very much Shaba for taking the time and agreeing to the interview. I appreciate it :)

Shaba:

You are welcome :)