Repair Tool of the Week: McAfee Product Removal Tool

The WSN Security Baseline

A minimum of three products are necessary to give your PC comprehensive protection against hackers. These are (1) a hardware firewall, (2) a software security suite, and (3) a patch-management solution to stay current with patches. We don't operate a test lab and don't rate products. Instead, we summarize, below, the top ratings of trusted reviewers.

 Favorite or popular is not generally a good criteria for picking security programs, but in this case, these are good choices.

" Replicating" means code that is slightly morphed each time it is delivered to keep it under the virus radar.

Spyware Doctor has been downloaded over 125 million times with millions more downloads every week. People worldwide use and trust Spyware Doctor to protect their PCs from spyware, adware and other online threats.

Spyware Doctor has consistently been awarded Editors' Choice, by leading PC magazines and testing laboratories around the world, including United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany and Australia. In addition, after leading the market in 2005, Spyware Doctor was awarded the prestigious Best of the Year at the end of 2005 and again in 2006.

 This is one of the applications in the "Google Pack".

The good: CounterSpy is inexpensive, scored well on CNET tests, has an intuitive interface, and offers more features than other antispyware apps on the market.

The bad: CounterSpy requires a reboot with some updates.

The bottom line: Sunbelt CounterSpy 2.0 distinguished itself in a crowded field by providing a clean, institutive interface and great test results.

Price range: $14.99

Firewalls' ratings

The table below sorts the tested firewalls by their total score. This table also shows the exact version of every tested product. The PDF document icon allows you to download the testing report in PDF format for the tested product.

"The security researchers and consultants of Matousec bring far more knowledge to firewall leak testing than most competing sites, which gives me more confidence in their results." -- Mark Joseph Edwards, Windows Secrets

Reviewers have not done the best job keeping pace with reviewing software firewalls. Because several companies have merged or gone out of business, many slightly older reviews are no longer relevant. For example, PC Magazine and PCFlank.com (a security site) have excellent reviews, but haven't reviewed enough current versions of programs to provide a useful basis for comparison. Consumer Reports mentions firewalls in passing in some of its outdated security software articles. Some other reviewers do a better job of keeping pace.

Computer Shopper, InformationWeek and Matousec.com offer very good reviews supported by testing. Reviewers test each firewall program for its ability to monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, including tests for port-scan attacks and leak tests. Firewall Leak Tester doesn't review products, but tests all major firewall programs with leak tests. A leak test is a malware program that tries to connect to an outside server from a computer to give a hijacker access. Reviewers also try to disable the software, as some malware programs try to do. While features and ease of use are important, technical performance is the most important buying consideration for firewall software.

How could such a great idea be implemented so poorly? When Microsoft released its initial version of Windows Live OneCare (see my review) back in early 2006, I lauded the company for providing a resource-friendly security and PC health suite that thought outside the box and offered a compelling set of services, a sort of "Web services-based IT administrator for home users," if you will. Indeed, aside from some silly and incessant pop-up dialogs and a curious lack of anti-spam functionality, I thought OneCare was pretty darned good. Compared to the security suites of the day, of course.

I was pretty much alone in that opinion. Security researchers in particular have ripped OneCare to shreds over the past year, complaining that it falls short of the competition when it comes to detecting and removing known malware. That said, those competitors were also busy working on OneCare rip-offs, the most obvious of which is Norton 360, reviewed below. Credit Microsoft for at least creating a new kind of security suite: Companies like Symantec, with Norton 360, and McAfee are still busy tweaking their own products to be more OneCare-like.

Rootkits--malware that can be particularly well hidden--are ferreted out by these free tools.

Andrew Brandt

Illustration: Mark Matcho

By now you've heard about Windows rootkits--tools malware authors use to hide their evil creations from our antivirus or antispyware software. Because rootkits often hide dangerous viruses, Trojan horses, or spyware, detecting them is important.

Only a few rootkit-detection tools have received attention: the free RootkitRevealer from sysinternals.com, and BlackLight (freeware until October 1) from F-Secure. But luckily for us, developers are working on a number of powerful, no-cost tools to detect rootkits.

IceSword Author Speaks Out On 'Rootkits'
June 14, 2005
By Brian Livingston

Computer users in the Western world had better adjust to the fact that excellent software is coming from China and will initially be available only in Chinese.

That's the situation with IceSword, a program I wrote about on May 31 and June 7. IceSword is a remarkably effective tool against "rootkits," virus-type programs that can evade detection by ordinary antivirus products. IceSword is available only in a Chinese-language version. Using several search engines, I was able to find dozens of comments about the program in Chinese-language sites, but not a single mention in English.

The one exception was the site of Hacker Defender, a rootkit package that's sold in a basic version for 20 euros (about $25 USD) and "silver" and "gold" versions for up to 450 euros. The package's author, who calls himself "holy_father," has written on his site that currently the only antirootkit tool that can detect Hacker Defender (HxDef) is IceSword. He called it "such a nice tool, [a] real challenge," adding, "One of my priorities this summer [will be] to beat IceSword."

The author of IceSword is a Chinese programmer who goes by "pjf_" in online postings. I was finally able to track down pjf_ and interview him through an intermediary. (After discovering an e-mail address pjf_ once used in a discussion forum, I sent a message requesting his full name, but my communication went unanswered.)

The following interview was conducted for me in Chinese by Ming Jin, a researcher who works with eEye Digital Security, based in southern California. I had the responses translated into English by Zhen Wang, a professional translator in Beijing.

Security Software Reviews

 There are ratings and links to more ratings under these categories.

• "While I agree with your perspective that recommending a suite instead of individual components does make the software easier to use and maintain, and the trade-off in not having the 'best' of each component is inconsequential, I must disagree with your stated criteria of using PC World and PC Magazine Editors' Choices as the selection criteria.
  
  "I think it is now widely accepted that both magazines, because of staff and budget cuts, do not fully evaluate the software but write cursory reviews based on the spec sheets and press releases that the software companies provide them. And, at times, when they do conduct tests, they conduct only very basic tests within their budget.
  
  "So may I recommend that you include a few of the independent labs that do a very good job of testing this software?
  
  "Of course, a caution is in order: these labs do not look at usability or stability or resource utilization of the software; they only look at how well the software does the job it is designed to do. So only using these lab results will also give you only half the picture, but admittedly a better picture than just using PC Magazine and PC World alone (and yes, in some reviews, both magazines refer to one or more of these labs' results, but not always and not consistently).
  
  • ICSALabs (monthly anti-virus test results)
  • Virus Bulletin (regular anti-virus tests)
  • AV-Test
  • AV-Comparatives
  • Matousec (for firewalls)
  • Firewall Leak Tester

Part 1 - Is there Truth in Numbers?

Security expert Bruce Scheiner talks about the ‘security theatre’, where vendors make their customers feel secure ‘by offering protection against threats that were not that great in the first place.’ He adds that ‘buyers can’t tell the difference between good and bad [products]’ and that many security vendors ‘play on emotion and fear’.

That about sums up the state of affairs. The old mafia families Norton, McAfee and Trend Micro have sold millions of clunky products to fearful consumers. In recent years, cheeky newcomers have muscled in on the old mafia’s turf, promising better protection and milder manners.

Symantec responded by claiming that a new version of Norton, the elephant in the PC security room, could dance like a ballerina, while McAfee and Trend Micro put on more weight and lumbered on. Zone Labs’ newer security suite flattered the old guard by matching their bulk. Then Microsoft decided to get into the security race and promptly collapsed on the first lap, winning the wooden spoon in the VB 100 tests.

Microsoft changed the rules, though, adding PC maintenance and file backup to its list of features. Symantec and McAfee, faced with the biggest threat they’d ever detected, readied new products to take on Windows Live-One Care. Microsoft tightened the screws some more, claiming that Vista was so secure it needed no extra guards.

With their turf under threat from two sides, the old mafia families decided to make their offers harder to refuse. They threw in three security guards for the price of one and added other attractions like parental control and phishing protection.

 This is an extensive, comprehensive report that is well worth the effort it takes to digest it. :-)

Security Suites 2008

Someone is out to get you . . . or at least your PC. The threats lined up against it have never been worse. But don't panic; there also has never been a better selection of security suites available to keep your system safe.

Top All-in-One Security Suites

Symantec's suite is a solid performer and easy to use. Kaspersky's and BitDefender's suites are the fastest to respond to new malware outbreaks, while McAfee offers lots of extra features.

PC World Staff

Today's security suites have a difficult job. Every other day seems to bring a new threat that targets Windows PCs. Spam is going through the roof, as are phishing and other unsavory Web sites. To find out which security suites can best handle the onslaught, we put eight of them through some tough tests under the 32-bit version of Windows Vista.

German security company AV-Test.org tested the antivirus, antispyware, and firewall components of each suite to determine how well the software catches both known malware and new malware (detected either through heuristics--recognition of the new malware's similarity to already-known bad code--or on the basis of its behavior alone). Due to the sophistication of the latest malware, none of the suites did well in the behavioral tests, but several of them did provide excellent protection against a smorgesbord of other baddies. Plus, most suites protect up to three PCs for the purchase price.

Security Suites 2008

12.12.07

  Total posts: 4

Someone is out to get you . . . or at least your PC. The threats lined up against it have never been worse. But don't panic; there also has never been a better selection of security suites available to keep your system safe.

by Neil J. Rubenking

REVIEW ROUNDUP:

Security Suite Smackdown 2008

Every suite's fighting style shares certain techniques, from firewalls to antivirus. This year the vendors are adding secret attacks—like backup and Wi-Fi intruder detection—to make their security kung-fu unstoppable.

Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2008

Six HIPS Programs Reviewed and Rated

An analysis of how well the latest generation of HIPS security products perform

• PC Worlds's March, 2006 antivirus ratings.
• A good series of articles by Steve Bass of PC World: [one] [two] [three] [four]
• "The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities": "Gizmo's" list comes amazingly close to my own recommendations -- not only for security programs, but for free programs in many other categories.
• The "List of Lists" has mini reviews of security software in many categories, as well as lists of just about everything else in cyberspace.
• Links to more malware defense related information on the Web.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities (Lots of Security Software here)

There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my personal pick of the "best of the best."

All the utilities in this list have featured in past issues of my free monthly newsletter "Support Alert"  More freebies are published in each new issue. If you are interested in great utilities and freeware you really should consider subscribing. It's free.