MAKING
YOUR WINDOWS PC MORE PRIVATE AND SECURE
Valhallen has kindly allowed the TAZ to host this paper of his
on our site.
You can find the original tutorial here:
http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=253274
The majority of people arriving on these forums do so for one of 2
reasons.
They want to be l337 hack0rs
They are worried about their privacy &/or Security online
Hopefully those who fall into the first category will be either shown
the faults in their ways or promptly kicked out the door
For the other group this is a quick Tut to help you start down the long
road to ensuring your own safety and privacy online.
I am going to break this down into 2 sections….Privacy & Security
There maybe some slight overlaps as they are very closely related but I
will try my best not to repeat myself too much too much! Hehe
Web Bugs
Ok a web bug is like a tracking device almost. A way to eavesdrop on
people and what sites they are visiting. Normally a 1x1 clear .gif,
which are put on webpages to track visitors to that particular page.
They can also be placed in emails, which leads too much big problems.
I’ll look t each type separately in a minute.
But how does it work? A web bug is placed on a different server to the
rest of the page. When you request that page you also request the bug,
even though you cannot see it. From this the owner of the bug can
acquire different info about the person who requested the bug.
Eg
Browser requests page >> page loads containing bug >> bug
loaded from separate server >> user’s information recorded by
server
Ok will talk about the 2 main types now that you have a basic idea of
what they are.
Web bugs on Websites :::
Not all transparent. gifs are web bugs – it is common practice on some
sites to use transparent .gifs to help align different page elements.
As you can’t see them they can be used to space out objects etc without
you knowing they are there.
What info can it record about you?
The IP address of the computer that fetched the Web bug
The URL of the page that the Web bug is located on
The URL of the Web bug image, which contains the information to be
communicated between the Web page visited and the site collecting the
data
The time the Web bug was viewed
The type of browser that fetched the Web bug image
A previously set cookie value
Taken from http://www.bugnosis.org/faq.html
So how can you protect yourself – well you could disable the displaying
of images in your browser but that would making surfing a lil dull. The
site listed above tho offers a prog called Bugnosis, which can be used
to spot bugs on pages.
Or you could use a Proxy server or similar services (will discuss later
in this tut)
Web bugs in Emails
IMHO these are the nastier of the 2 types of bugs cause when you view a
HTML email containing a bug it is like sending up a flare to spammers
telling them that your email is an active address.
What do I mean by this? Well some spammers may send out thousands of
emails to different email addresses without knowing if they are
reaching anyone or not.
They might try J.doe123@hotmail.com, J.doe124@hotmail.com,
J.doe125@hotmail.com and so on
But when you view the email it requests the bug from the spammers
server so they then know that the email was opened by someone so that
email address must belong to someone and be active.
So how can you prevent this? Well set up your Spam filters on your
email account as this should help stop some from getting through. Or
disable HTML email so that you can only view it as text. This may look
messy but if you want to view it as it was meant to be seen simply
copy&paste the text into a new txt file and save with the extension
.html – do not view in your browser however until you are offline. As
opening it while connected to the Internet will still send up the flare
you won’t be able to view any of the other images etc but might make it
slightly easier to read.
Betrayed by your browser
You can see the kind of information your browser is giving away every
time you visit a website by checking here ->
http://www.privacy.net/analyze/
Even with a firewall etc up and running this kind of information is
freely available for anyone who wants it.
One way you can help keep some of your information private (such as
your IP address) is to use a proxy server. A proxy server is kind of
like a middleman. It sends the information back and forward between
your browser and the web server keeping you hidden. Like this
You request page >> proxy server >> Web server
Web server sends page >> proxy server >> You
For example the traceroute performed above on privacy.org managed to
get pretty close to my actual location as I live in a major city in
Scotland but when I activated my proxy settings and revisited the page
it died out somewhere near India
Proxies are by no means foolproof but they can provide an extra layer
of privacy. But they may come at the cost of your connection speed.
A quick search in google shouold turn up more than enough public proxy
servers to keep you happy!!
But how to use them once you have an IP for the server??
Well I'm an Opera user so will give you the how to for it but it should
be much the same for all browsers
Go to File >> Prefrences (or click alt+p)
Click on Network down the lefthand side
Choose Proxy Servers
Enter the IP and port in the new window that opens
Tick the services that you wish to use the proxy for (normal browsing
is http)
Exit out of prefrences by hitting ok
Although not free you can also use products or services such as
anonymizer (http://www.anonymizer.com/) to try and protect yourself as
well.
Ok now moving on….so you have protected your privacy some but now what
about stopping those evil kiddies from breaking in? Well if like me
your on a tight budget there is a whole host of freeware &
shareware tools out there to help you secure your PC so lets go through
what you need.
Ok first of all let’s shut down some holes you might have in your
system by default.
The first is the Windows Messenger Service now this is not an IM
(Instant Message) client like MSN or AIM but is used to send pop boxes
and the like across networks and over the internet. Originally included
so that network admins could notify people when tasks have been
completed etc it is now used by spammers to invade your PC and send you
even more ads.
Unless you need this service which you prolly won’t on a home network
then shut it down. This can be done by hand but I want to provide the
easiest way possible of getting your computer secured in this tutorial
so check out this page -> [url]
http://www.grc.com/stm/shootthemessenger.htm [/url] for more
information and also a download to close of the port automatically for
you.
NetBIOS
There is an excellent tut on AO with regards to NetBios hacking written
by rioter. So good infact that it has been ripped off by several other
sites and even translated into Chinese – lol
Well they do say that copying is the biggest form of flattery!! Don't
think rioter thinks so tho! heh
Unless you need these ports open then I suggest you also close them off
as well. Once again grc provides a handy tool to do just this. You can
read more information on it here ->
[url]http://grc.com/faq-shieldsup.htm [/url] or download the prog here
-> [url]http://grc.com/freepopular.htm[/url] its about half way down
name noshare.exe
Ok so you have closed down some ports now lets be doubly sure by
installing a firewall. There are several different free firewalls out
there but personally I like outpost ->
[url]http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/[/url]
The basic edition is free and easy to use and does anything you could
need – it also contains a built in ad-blocker, which is nice!
Just download the file install it and only grant access to those
programs you are sure off.
But what about spyware? Trojans? And virii??
Well first of all lets see if we can’t give outpost a little hand in
blocking some of those ads – by altering your host file you can block
some domains that ads originate from
You can find a lot more information on your host file – what it is and
how it can help you stop ads here ->
[url]http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/[/url]
As well as downloading a host file containing a huge list of known ad
domains.
Ok now we need an AVP (Anti-virus Prog) once again this can be gotten
free online at [url]http://www.grisoft.com/[/url] they offer a basic
prog for free along with free updates. Its simple to install and use
and you shouldn’t need walked through it. You will need to register at
the site to download the prog but that isn’t too much of a problem am
sure.
But many peoples biggest fear is Trojans – these seemingly harmless
looking files contain a hidden payload…. more often than not a backdoor
which can allow kiddies to connect to your computer. Now your pretty
much protected s the AVP should pick up on it and the firewall should
stop any outgoing connections but just to be sure I always keep a
Trojan Cleaner handy and IMHO The Cleaner does the job great J
[url]http://www.moosoft.com/[/url]
It is a 30-day trial but might be worth the investment to get the full
thing. Also the cleaner comes bundled with 2 other progs which some in
handy not only for keeping an eye on Trojans but also on other progs
that you may have running.
You may have noticed that if you type msconfig at the run menu and go
to start-up you can disable MSN from starting everytime you start your
PC….great!! But run MSN once and close the app and it adds another
entry to the registry making it run on start-up again!! One of the
pieces of software bundled with The Cleaner sees to it that this kind
of thing cannot happen without your knowledge as it runs in the
background monitoring any changes made to your registry and letting you
know about them so you can remove/change them as needed.
But what about spyware?? This is not deemed by some AVP’s to be malcode
so is not picked up on so how do you check for it? Well everyone seems
to have their own preference with regards to spyware removal progs such
as search&destroy etc but I prefer ad-aware ->
[url]http://www.lavasoftusa.com/[/url] just download the prog and give
your comp a scan every now and again to ensure your spyware free!!!
On a side note I you are suffering from a lot of pop-ups…. not from
spyware but form websites I suggest you either
Start using Opera, which comes with a built in pop-up blocker as well
as a bunch of other features (my fav browser!)
[url]http://www.opera.com/[/url]
Or if using IE then get google’s toolbar ->
[url]http://toolbar.google.com/ [/url]which also comes with a pop-up
blocker
Ok so you have protected your privacy, blocked your ads/pop-ups, locked
down your ports, got rid of your spyware and made sure your virus
free!! Now lets run it through its paces by checking on grc that your
shields are up – lol
[url]http://grc.com/default.htm[/url] about 2 thirds of the way down ::
link to shields up!!
This runs some tests on your firewall to see what ports are open etc
and to ensure it is not allowing incoming connections it shouldn’t as
well as checking that you are properly stealthed.
Now to check to ensure it is blocking outgoing connections once again
we get a handy tool from grc ->
[url]http://grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm[/url] this tries to make an
outgoing connection from your PC to the grc server to ensure your
firewall is configured correctly.
But what about testing your AVP? Well I asked the same question on AO
not long ago here ->
[url]http://www.antionline.com/showthrea...threadid=253152[/url] the
best thing seemed to be to get EICAR ->
[url]http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm[/url]
Tho some members don’t think it does much good but at least you can see
its running – lol
Well that should be enough to get you started off protecting your home
computer
v_Ln
www.reach-out.org.uk
Original Tutorial
Submitted by nokia for TheTAZZone-TAZForum
Originally posted on March 14th, 2006 here
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