How Safe is Your PC?

Web browsers are  the most common target of an attack.  Malware and Spyware  is get into  the  PC through modified websites which trigger buffer overruns for instance; hackers can thus crash the browser.

Following are  some of the most common ways users are fooled .

• Links can lead you to malicious material such as hidden drive-by downloads that attempt to silently install software onto your computer without you doing anything or knowing about it.
• Links can also lead you to a phishing site designed by scammers to trick a user into revealing confidential information such as account passwords for banking or social networking sites.
• There are downloads that seem perfectly safe, such as a video, screensaver (screensavers are the most notorious) or some even offer to give you security protection, but they are actually malware. 
• A link from a friend might not be safe either.  Your friend’s computer could have been infected and now is part of a botnet being used to send malware and dangerous links. 
• Tweeters often use URL shortening services such as tinyurl.com to obtain a shorter URL that fits within the 140 characters restriction.  This means you don’t know what site your are really going to until you are there.

Here are some utilities to test your browser and other securities

Bcheck-Scanit:Check out the security of your Web browser with the help of Scanit to see whether your browser will be able to withstand such an attack. To run the test, open the website from your preferred browser. With ‘Start the test’, you will expose the browser to an attack that can possibly cause a crash. We subjected our default Web browser , Firefox , to nine different exploits; there were seven in the  case of Internet Explorer. If everything is alright, you will get a confirmation after the test. If the browser crashes, reload it, restore the session and open the site again. You will now see the test result and an explanation of what went wrong.

BrowserCheck is another online  utility  to check  whether your Web browser secured or not.It will tell you the browser's encryption strength.

AuditMYPC-FirewallTest : will check your computer for ports that are commonly left open. Open ports could allow your computer to be compromised. This firewall test will also check for open ports known to be used by Viruses and Trojans.This site also contains Anonymous Test  and InternetSpeedTest

ShieldsUP:This website will help scan the Open Port to test the security of your computer. See if you can clear it.

Symantec Online Security  Check  also  a nice tool to tests your  computer's online threats. It's an effective tool that helps determine your Internet security needs

Popup test is the most complete way for you to test your popup blocking software. Your popup blocker will be given a series of tests that range from your standard popup to very complex popups that will slip by most popular ad blockers

Category: Online Scanner, Privacy, Protection, Security