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Avast Blog_ViewPoints: The Eight Essentials of Secure Computing
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Beginning with a secure browser and ending with a healthy paranoia, here are the essentials of staying safe online

A secure browser

For most of us, our web browser is the internet. It’s how we directly access the information and content online, for work, for fun, for research, for finance, for communication and almost everything else we do online.

As our first, last and primary point of contact with the world wide web, it makes sense to make sure our browsers are as secure as possible.

Fortunately, for the most part, the most popular browsers are secure enough. Whether we’re a Firefox, Edge, Chrome, Safari or even Opera user, the in-built security functions are enough to serve our basic needs. However, this only goes for browsers which are kept fully up-to-date; so, learn how to check for updates. Do so frequently or enable automatic updating on the chosen browser.

However, even if the browser is kept secure, this doesn’t always apply to third-party extensions. Malicious extensions are frequently associated with click fraud. The browser is sent to an advertising site that uses 'pay per click' to earn the extension developer ad-based income. In early 2018, researchers discovered four related Chrome extensions (Change HTTP Request Header; Nyoogle - Custom Logo for Google; Lite Bookmarks; and Stickies - Chrome's Post-it Notes) that had been installed by around 500,000 users. The techniques used, however, could also be used to establish a beachhead into the local network.

In October 2018, Google introduced new security measures aimed against the installation of malicious Chrome extensions, resulting in an 89% drop over the course of the year. Despite this improvement, it remains important to take care over any extensions you install. Check to see if there are any reported problems before installing any browser extension.

Do not expect too much from the browser. It’s tempting to think, “I don’t mind clicking that link because Chrome will tell me if it’s malicious.” It might, but statistically, it probably won’t. Recent research suggests that there are more than 17.5 million websites infected with malware at any time. Only 15% of these are blacklisted by the search engines – which means there are nearly 15 million infected websites that the browser doesn’t know about, and cannot warn us about.

It may be worth looking into specialized security-enhanced browsers from reputable companies – like the Avast Secure Browser, built on the same fast Chromium engine as Google Chrome but offering expanded and more resilient security features.

Ad blocker

At first glance, an ad-blocker seems more like a quality-of-life essential than a security essential. All those pop-ups, pop-unders, banner and tower ads quickly become annoying, and shutting them out certainly improves our browsing experience. However, it is also important to limit the amount of advertising we allow on our browser from a security perspective. Ads can be a surprisingly effective vector for malware and cyber-attacks, such as last year’s PayLeak attack, which posed as a legitimate ad to lure users to fraudulent websites. This was an attack against Apple Pay wallets.

This type of attack is known as malvertising, where a seemingly innocuous advertisement quietly redirects us to a malicious site that attempts to infect us with anything from spyware to ransomware.

Over the last few years another problem has been growing with online ads. We’re already accustomed to targeted advertising trying to sell us what the marketers think will be of interest. But now there are people trying to sell us political dogma. There have been documented, concerted efforts to influence the political landscape by serving targeted ads which prey on the psychology of users and try to influence the way we vote. This is political social engineering by way of online advertising.

There are freely available, reputable ad-blocking plugins for most browsers. One is also built-in as a customizable feature of Avast’s Secure Browser. When using an ad blocker, we must not forget to whitelist the most trusted websites to allow our favorite blogs and news sites to afford their upkeep through legitimate advertising.

Anti-malware

With so many malicious websites, so much malvertising, and so many other ways for bad guys to try steal our identity or infect us with malware, we absolutely need that staple of PC security: an anti-malware solution. Sooner or later, malware is likely to end up on our system, and when it does it needs to be removed as quickly and effectively as possible.

Some operating systems come with their own malware removal tools, like Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, but these are often lacking in features compared to specialized anti-malware applications. It’s more than a good idea to have an effective anti-virus solution like Avast Free Antivirus to stay protected against outside threats, and to be able to quarantine and remove any malicious files that do make their way onto our machines.

There are several free anti-malware products available. Most have “premium” versions available at a small cost. While the basic malware detection and removal is the same across both versions, the professional system usually provides extra facilities – bells and whistles – that are worth considering.
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