My Steps in Removing Virus/Malware

Incidently, a friend of mine who recently was introduced by me into the world of computing and internet, called me this morning asking for advice. He suspected that his PC was somehow infected by a virus or a malware, and do not know how to remove it.

Will first rule of thumb... PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURING... I have repeatedly told him that don't simply clicked Yes to any pop up that appears on a web page. Sometimes it is too hard to remove a particular malware/virus once it has taken root inside your PC.

Well, here is what I would do if I ever encounter this situation. This is just a rough guideline which I try to follow... This usually works on most virus/malware on Windows

a. Try to determine whether the reason your system becoming sluggish or unusable is not because of something else. Sometimes this could be caused by slow network connection, failure of an application, even after a fresh installation. Sometimes registry error due to install & uninstall process could become the reason why your PC becomes so slow.

b. After confirmation that it is because of something else, I'd do the following. Generally I will try to use anti-virus and anti-malware to do it.

c. Verify that I have access to System Restore and als to Internet. This is because I would like to try to stop any application from restoring my PC to a previous point, and also would want to get the latest update to my ati virus/malware.

d. Uninstall your current Anti-Virus. Obviously there could not cater for this virus, since the PC are infected. Install a new one, AVG free edition or Avast is a good choice, because they are free. Install it but DO NOT RUN it yet. Update with latest virus definitions.

e. Install Ad-aware personal edition. Update its definition, but DO NOT RUN it yet.

f. Install Spybot Search & Destroy. Update its definition, but DO NOT RUN it yet.

g. Boot Windows into Safe Mode.HOW ?? Restart your computer and press F8 before Windows loads. Press F8 several times if you need to. Select Safe Mode from the resulting menu. Safe Mode disables much of the startup routine (including some common Malware hiding places).

h. If you already in safe mode, start the Anti virus. Delete or heal any files with virus.

i. Run your Malware Scanners - Run both the scanners sequentially, deleting any references found.

j. Reboot and turn System Restore back on.

k. Enjoy your sanitised computer. Hopefully. If you still want your old anti-virus, uninstall those tools I have listed above, and reinstall the old anti-virus.

Transition into IT Security blog

Today, a close friend of mine, mentioned something that intrigues me. He mentioned about final goal, and I am trying to relate this to my blog. He mentioned that when it comes to blogging, even a personal blog, there should be some kind of directions. It seems to me that I should chart and decorate my blog with some kind of theme. It still a personal blog, but with a theme. The only theme that I could think of right now, is on anime or security. Well, watching anime is my hobby while IT security is what I do for a living.

Well, I have decided that IT Security would be it. I am also learning on this area, thus this blog would be some kind of record of my learning curve. It will be a blog where I will try to share my knowledge in this area with all. I am not hoping that someone will learn from it, just that when I wrote it down, it will stuck better in my head.

An early note, many people tend to confuse on what is IT Security. When asked, many straight away associate it with common tools such as anti-virus, firewall etc. Well, this is just wrong.

If you want your house to be a secure place where you hide your most precious possession, you would want it to be perhaps a secret, with a proper mechanism that would stop unauthorized person from entering the premise, allowing only you to enter your home at any time you want, in the same manner you have always accessed your home. Whenever a bad guy try to enter your premise, you are able to stop him, and if the intruder still managed to get into and out, you have the police to help you to try and track and catch this intruder.

When I talk about IT Security, it boils down to the same picture. You are keeping your most valuable secret in a system, hopefully a secret to anybody else, having proper mechanism to track and stop unauthorized person from entering the system, allowing only you to enter the system at any time you want, in the same manner you have always accessed the system. Whenever a bad guy try to enter your premise, you are able to stop him, and if the intruder still managed to get into and out, you have the enforcement agency to help you to try and track and catch this intruder.

This is what IT Security is all about. In short, it is to try to provide a platform or an environment where with proper policy and enforcement, allows you to become confident in doing things and saving your valuable data in that environment. Off course with that understanding, anti-virus, anti-malware, honey-pot, firewall would become useful tools in achieving that objective.

The Forbidden Kingdom : My Review

Well, I have watched it last Thursday with my friend. Here's the trailer for that movie....

The story is exactly what I expected it to be, with some small surprises here and there. Prior to watching it, I have read the synopsis and have expected that the storyline must be a simple one, since it is basically a story of boy becoming a man in his journey to fulfill a prophecy. Surely you have heard the same kind of cliche before... Well, I have.. many times before..

The kung fu fighting scene, which is the main reason I came, is awesome. Here is Jackie Chan with his Drunken Fist style, and Jet Li with his style of kung fu, fighting to gain control of a magical rod, a golden rod belonging to the imprisoned Monkey King. The fight is nicely done, where no one among the two managed to gain control of the rod, ending the fight in a draw.

Another nice scene is when the boy decided to fight the bully back. His kick hits the face of the bully with an ummpphh... Nicely done, boy.. Later on he showed his skill in playing with a staff on the roof top, which is smooth...

The Dream Reawaken

Yesterday night, at 1 o'clock in the morning, I went to a mamak stall in Taman Kosas, Ampang (nearby to my house). While having my late supper there, I watched a movie by the title 'Braveheart'. William Wallace is really a great warrior and leader, and he died fighting for the thing that he strongly believes in.

I got really inspired by the movie. This is a movie that teaches a lot of values. It teaches about fighting for your dream and your freedom. It teaches you to keep standing up again and again even after a major blow. It teaches you that those in power should not think that other people exist to provide you with position and power, rather , people in power exist to provide other people freedom in various aspect of life.

It got me thinking, where does my life going to? Does this path that I am taking really leads to the place that I want? Do the actions that I have taken in the past contributes into shaping my future into the form that I want?

Well, putting it further, what do I really want from my life? This is basically the kind of question that I used to ask myself on daily basis a long time ago, right after I graduated from my university. After working for a few years, the flame of questioning things have died quite some time ago. I simply follow the flow...

After some soul searching this morning, I think I need to start another plan. I already have a career plan in place, which I am in the right path, but right now I need another plan. I need to really consider what are the options that would allow me to become financially free. I am not talking about becoming rich, I am talking about having incomes that enough to make me do not need to work for others. I do not want a business where I have to sacrifice a lot of my time, or have to be in office from 9-5 almost every day. I want a passive income, where it involved almost 0 daily work from me.

With free time, it would open up to many responsibility. Religeous responsibility and family oriented activity comes straight away after this. Well, do not want to think much about it , until I need to i.e it has become a reality.

Well, I do not want MLM or anything similar to it, unless I am the owner of the company of course :-). Do not want to go into insurance or unit trust. I am left with a real business option. A business where I have much control over it, where the demand is there. I already have distributor right for all TM products. May be I should start with utilizing this license...

Wish me luck....

FBL Bowling Tournament Result

Well, the result is devastating. I did not win, but then again, I did not lose. The reason why is that I could not even reach the place in time to take part in the tournament.

The tournament is at Endah Parade at 1.30pm. I departed from a friend's house at about 12.55 pm. Well, 35 minutes later, I managed to only reach MRR2 Ulu Klang exit. 35 minutes for may be 10km stretch of 3 lanes highway?? Something must be wrong, right?

You bet.... 2 ambulances and a fire fighter truck is a dead giveaway. I assumed they must be a bad accident up front. When I reached there, I managed to only take a snapshot from my car, edited to hide the company I worked with... Take a look at the accident and you decide how bad it is.

Attacked by the Apes!!!

For a few days already, I have a problem that my trash bin has been ransacked. I mean the plastic bags was untied and opened nicely, then all the trash inside it are taken out and finally left all over the place ( well, actually around 5m radius in front of my house).

It is so annoying, that this weekend I continously monitoring to see whether there is some collector who ransacked people's bin to find some metal or cans. I don't mind they going through my bin, but do it in such a way that it does not create a problem for me....

To my surprise, the answer to the mysterious ransacker is not even human. It is a monkey or a member from that species. I was waiting inside my home compound(is this the correct spelling, or word??) area when suddenly that 'new' neighbour climbed from the next door house into my area. I was dumb strucked, not knowing what to do. I even felt a bit scared, since I had this experience fighting with a group of baboons during a camping trip before, which is not a good one. To my relief, I did not see any other monkey around.

Well, I managed to take a snapshot of the monkey, not a good one since it is taken with my old handphone.... That monkey even dare to show off, making moves similar to Mr Universe posing his body on stage....

The monkey is in the center of the Red Box..

Moving Road Blocks, Listen Out!!

Woo hooo, what do I mean by that.... Moving Road BlockS??

May be I am wrong, but I am compelled to say this out loud... I find it is inconsiderate for those Giant Yellow Bulldozers to be on the small roads and highways during rush hour, especially around 7-8.30 in the morning. Furthermore, there are TWO of them on my 10km struggle on MRR highway today...

You know its rush hour, and you know you can only move at 40 Km/h... It is such a frustrating feeling when I realized that I are going to be late today because some guy decided it is okay be on the road on such a busy time... After all, you guys paid road tax too... right?

Come on man, you bulldozer drivers out there, you are practically a road block on the highway, the only different is, you are a MOVING ROAD BLOCKS... bottle neck happens because of you.. people get impatient because of you... To us, rush hour drivers, there is nothing different between you and a stalled car on the road. Well, I just hope bulldozers driver out there read this rambling of mine... and be considerate on this issue...