La Piazza

As you know, at La Piazza we usually give advice to improve the safety of adolescents. Yes, those adorable half-child, half-adult creatures so vulnerable to the dangers of the net. Today we’ll talk about how parents can tell if their teenagers may be having an addiction type of issue or could be misusing the Internet. Actually, this article applies to anyone, regardless of age, so read carefully!

Although I don’t think it is clinically proven that an Internet addiction pathology as such exists, it is an ongoing debate and it is worth taking a moment and considering whether we could be making an excessive or inappropriate use of the net.

Let’s see. In my spare time, I browse the Internet an average of 40 minutes a day on weekdays and about twice that time at the weekend. I use the Internet as a means to entertain and inform myself. I love reading various national and foreign newspapers so the Internet for me is one of the best inventions ever. It allows me to catch up on the latest events either through digital newspapers or through social networks such as Twitter.
Also, a while ago, a good friend of mine recommended me the game Angry Words (online multi-player word game) and I confess to be hooked to it. My only consolation is that it’s an instructive game the whole family enjoys, even though we are starting to get nastily competitive to see who gets the “angriest word”.
The rest of the time I spend on the Internet I normally use it to look up recipes, watch YouTube videos, listen to music and little else.
My husband also makes a similar use of the network and my daughter, in full pre-teen stage, really likes playing different apps and listening to music. She also uses the computer daily for homework or school work, but more out of obligation than pleasure, so that does not count. We try to make reasonable use not prevent us from making another different type of activity.

I personally think that, a person who feels fascinated by a hobby and invests in it huge amounts of time has the ability to learn, encourage creativity and communication. But I think the key for it not to become something harmful is based on making a conscious use of the Internet, knowing that many games, videos, activities, etc. may have an addictive component. Once you are aware of this, it is imperative to manage the time spent on the Internet to prevent it from turning into something harmful.

At home we know that Angry Words is addictive, and if we did not say Enough!, we would probably spend hours and hours on the computer that would stop us from doing other kind of activities together. The difficulty lies in establishing the limits between an intensive use of technology and the emergence of the direct consequences of the activity.

Take this extreme example: two teenagers from Rocklin (California) drugged the parents of one of them to avoid the ban on the Internet after 22:00 (see full story here).

So, how many of the following statements do you identify with?

• You spend more and more time online to be in good spirits.
• You are not able to reduce or control your access to the network, however hard you try.
• You invest considerable amount of time in Internet-related activities, (purchase of books, testing new browsers, organization of downloaded material, etc.).
• Social activities, whether professional or recreational, diminish or disappear because of your Internet use.
• You stay connected despite knowing that this is a persistent and recurring physical, social, occupational, or psychological problem (sleep deprivation, marital conflicts, job neglect, feelings of leaving loved ones …).

Dare you share with us how much of your free time you spend online? Have you stopped doing things because you are compulsively glued to your computer?

Posted by david, July 16, 2009

In the past few days, we have had reports from our customers regarding a notification from Windows Security Center (WSC) of Vista SP1 machines indicating that the Virus Protection is not compatible although the antivirus is actually working fine.

The guys from Microsoft’s Windows Security Center Team contacted us to inform that this isn’t the expected behavior and they are working hard to find a solution for this error.

On the other hand, we are currently developing an autofix (automatic hotfix) for our 2009 and 2010 products which will solve the problem by changing the way our products register against WSC. This autofix will be available through automatic updates during the next weeks.

The immediate solution is pretty easy, just navigate to Windows Update website and install Windows Vista’s Service Pack 2. Don’t you think it’s a good opportunity to update your system to Vista SP2? This update not only will solve this small problem but will also fix several security bugs.

Posted by Miguel, José and Raquel 25th June 09

Summer is here and we’ve got the tips and tricks you need to be the coolest mate on the scene, resting assure that your PC is at no risk.

Here are the Top 10 very basic and easy to follow rules you must not forget:   

1. Keep your Panda Antivirus always running and updated. Register your software products and schedule automatic updates.

 

2. Clean-up your computer weekly to delete unnecessary files and clear your browsing history.

 

3. Configure your PC so the automatic Windows Updates are always downloaded.

 

4. Use your common sense. If you’re unsure about an attachment, delete it. Especially if it comes from a source not familiar to you. If there are tempting animations on a site that look highly unprofessional, don’t download them.

 

5. Avoid opening executable files from suspicious emails or websites. Even if you are quite certain about the source of an executable file, be alert and exercise caution and common sense before opening.

 

6. Limit your account user rights. If you have an administrative right on the computer, that means you can install anything and also perform any system configuration on it, but viruses using your administrative right can install themselves on the computer and enter registry values. However, when you limit your user right to a power user, no auto run file will be able to run on your PC unless you allow so. Additionally, no system configuration will be applied to your machine without your permission.

 

7. Keep only those applications you use. We all love downloading and testing all those programs that seem incredibly interesting at a first glance.  The truth is that we end up with lots of programs installed that we will never be used again. Each of these programs, DO slow down your PC!! By keeping only those programs we often use, we will improve the PC´s performance.

 

8. Be careful with the use you make of USB pendrives. They are a real source of infections. To avoid the risks use the “Panda USB Vaccine“.

 

9. Don’t answer any emails requesting your personal financial data. A bank would never request personal data via email. Criminals usually include false alarming messages like “urgent- your account data might have been stolen” to obtain your data in a dishonest way.  Serious companies will never request a login or password from you by email, so even though the email seems to be authentic don’t respond!

 

10. Subscribe to the alerts in the Security Info Area in our website to always be informed about the latest threats.

 

Enjoy the summer!

Hi all. I’m Juan S. Fernandez, part of the technical support department for Panda USA. This will be my first post and I want to blog about something that we often get asked for in support, at least recently: How to deal with Conficker.

From Panda’s perspective, the current variants of Conficker are properly identified and removed. But still, you may have Panda installed in your network, and still, Conficker seems to be showing up all over the place… Your computers keep reporting that are infected, network traffic is slow, your users have problems logging on as your Domain Controllers are saturated… And you wonder what is going on.

Typically, by the time we receive a call in support regarding a Conficker network infection the customer has already expent hours (some times, days) trying to eradicate Conficker from the network. Isolating computers where Panda detected the virus, running tool over tool, to find nothing or just a few left over registry keys… but the problem never goes away. What gives!

Well, I’m sorry, but you are wasting your time. You are concentrating on the wrong computers. Panda correctly detects and disinfects Conficker. Current versions of Conficker will not be allowed to run on a machine that has a working and updated Panda antivirus on it.

 So why are you seeing the detections? You need to understand the way that Conficker operates to know where to look for it: Conficker will utilize different paths of infection. The machine where Conficker is running will try to hit other machines on the same network, exploiting some Microsoft vulnerabilities (See MS08-67 here ) If the target machine hasn’t been patched, Conficker will be able to bypass your computer security and by impersonating an admin account, drop a file on the computer system32. It will also try to add a scheduled task to run those files, among other things (I’m a support guy, not a virus researcher… I’ll let them do the technical explanation)

So what is your Panda doing about it? Well, Panda is preventing the execution of the files, and giving you the detection. But we cannot “close the hole” on your Windows OS. That hole needs to be closed by applying the appropriate Windows Update. Which one? ALL of them!

Note where I said that Conficker will not run on a computer that has a working, and updated Panda Antivirus. That is actually they key to realizing what you need to do: Make sure that ALL your computers have working and updated Panda protections installed. And at the same time, make sure that all your computers have all needed Windows updates installed. But don’t stop just there. Go ahead and patch all your software too: from Adobe reader, to flash player, Real Player… or you may find yourself fighting other viruses another day.

So what should be your plan of action if you start receiving Conficker infections? Find the computers that are not complaining about it. Ignore the ones that complain. The computers that are infected with Conficker will not have working protection installed. Make sure that your Antivirus deployment is complete, and make sure that all your computers have Panda installed.

You only need 1 computer without protection and infected with Conficker to have the rest of your machines “defending” themselves constantly against it, generating distracting warnings. I had one instance where “a mayor network attack by Conficker”  prevented user log-ins for hours on a 600 user network, and it was caused by a single Laptop that somebody had brought from home… Which, of course, did not have Panda installed. Establish strict policies for external computers brought over to your network, perhaps create a separate wifi network to allow them access to the Internet, without compromising your own security.

For added protection, set your Panda Antivirus to scan all extensions, as Conficker will try to use non standard extensions to foul the protections. You may need to create some exclusions to ensure application estability (like the exclusions for your Exchange server…)

This is where products like Panda for Business or Panda Managed Office protection really show their value. They allow to monitor what is going on on your network. Who has protection, who does not, who got what virus detected… and quickly adjust your computer’s  protection settings if needed. Panda for Business will even tell you if you have any computers on the network that are not integrated, or with protections that cannot be managed. NetworkSecure can even remove from the network computers whose protection has been disabled, to reduce the risk to the rest of the network. Or prevent connections from computers on certain ip ranges. On large networks, it can be installed directly from a Group Policy, reducing the deployment time.

Panda Managed Office Protection allows you to monitor the protection status of your computers, no matter where they are in the world as long as they are connected to the internet. And you can do all that without investing on extra servers or databases.

I hope that this blog may help some of you get Conficker out of your network. And until the  next post.