Contributed by Melih Abdulhayoglu:
Comodo research shows that over 50% of desktops have been converted to zombies. They are possessed by unwanted programs that use the host computer to send spam, or steal confidential information.
If you think you are safe, because you are using anti-virus and anti-spyware software, think again. You may already have spyware happily calling your computer home.
A/V and A/S programs are like cops that only look for murderers by using photos. No photo, no way of identifying the murderer.
But how do you handle a new virus or a new spyware that your A/V and A/S software does not know anything about?
That’s what a modern Personal Firewall is useful for, providing you visibility about who is making a call home from your machine. Yes, they also protect you from people trying to hack into your machine, but the real value in this spyware-ridden computer world, is providing you the visibility about your connections. Who is connecting to what, both to and from your machine.
How will you know if the personal firewall is good enough? One way is to run a leak test on your firewall. If your firewall leaks, then it won’t protect against malware that is calling home.
[Editor’s note: Firewall Leak Tester links to external tests that check 19 different types of firewall leaks.]
fyi: Melih Abdulhayoglu is president of Comodo Group. Comodo offers a range of trust and security enabling products, and services, including SSL certificates, password management, anti-virus, anti-spam and secure messaging solutions. Comodo’s free Personal Firewall for Windows 2000 and XP SP2 was recently recognized as a PC Magazine Editor’s Choice.
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3 comments
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June 27th, 2006 at 5:10 am
Fred Arnold
Nice commercial. Maybe the next article will be an actual article.
June 27th, 2006 at 8:28 am
BJ
Hi Fred.
You think we got PAID?
Melih gave me one nugget that kicked his piece into news: The contention that most PCs have been infected as zombies.
Bad call? Can’t hit ‘em out of the park *every* day.
Tell you what. I’ll make it up to you. Same day, I ran a smart alec Newsbyte, “Parsing Microsoft’s WinFS announcement as the SQL-based file system assumes room temperature,” where I translated MS WinFS propaganda, tongue-in-cheek. According to MS insiders, I was dead-on. Turned out to be a wholesale slaughter.
(http://www.trimmail.com/news/elsewhere/data/1151350089.25/)
June 30th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
Melih Abdulhayoglu
Fred
Do you really want to continue getting more and more spam on daily basis? Do you think the amount of spam you get is not enough and you want more? Do you think the 10% of the online users is not enough amount of victims who fall for phishing? Do you think we need more phishing and more phishing victims?
Of course not! So stop being sceptical and start helping curb spyware by educating everyone you know about and get them using a personal firewall that does not leak! And NO Comodo does not make money from providing this firewall! and NO we will never charge for it! and NO we will never give cut down version(crippleware) of this firewall and charge people to get an “upgraded” version. Fred, come and help the community who don’t know how to protect themselves or who think they can’t afford to have access to these technologies! We need you to help us! Fancy doing some good?
Melih
Comodo