How to Protect your PC from Spies for FREE

This method works to protect your computer from malware, spyware, virii and government spies checking up on you. This method works best on a freshly formatted HD with a new OS, only because you may already have malicious software installed that you are unaware of.

First download VirtualBox here: www.virtualbox.org...

If you don't already know VirtualBox is a virtual PC that runs on your current operating system. If you are running on Windows you can install VirtualBox and run any other operating system in a window as if it were any other application running in Windows. The OS running in VirtualBox is called a guest OS and your main OS is called your host OS. Basically the guest OS thinks it is running on it's own PC when it is in fact just running off of a file on your hard drive. Any files you save on your guest OS will be stored in a file on your hard drive.

Download an operating system, I recommend a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu: www.ubuntu.com

Here's the deal. You'll need a firewall installed, if you're on Windows the Windows Firewall will work fine. Setup all of your firewall profiles to block all inbound and outbound connections that do not match a rule specifically setup to allow the connection. If you're using Windows Firewall a few rules are already setup to allow certain connections, go into the advanced settings and disable all rules except for those related to core networking. This will block all applications from accessing the internet, including internet explorer or any web browsers you have installed. Now setup an inbound and outbound rule to allow only VirtualBox access to the internet.

Startup your VirtualBox system and do all of your web browsing and internet activity through your guest OS. Any spyware, malware, virii downloaded will think that is has infected your system, but it has actually only infected one file on your hard drive, it will not be able to spread to your host OS because it does not even know there is a host OS.

Instructions on the VirtualBox website should be able to help you get your guest OS up and running, but if you need additional help you're welcome to post here and I'll see if I can offer assistance. I've been using this method for almost a year and my system still runs like new.

I forgot to mention that VirtualBox allows you to setup a 'network' folder with your host OS so you can transfer files between the two. I recommend NOT setting up networking between your host and guest operating systems, this would allow any software or hacker access to your host OS through your guest OS. If you need to transfer files between the two use a USB disk or something of the like.

reply to post by Symbiot


Nice try my friend but from working in the IT/Telecoms arena I'm pretty sure most of the more "advanced" virii will be able to notice the difference that your utilising a hypervisor OS and still be able to spread to your local partition.

If you want to secure your PC against such attacks then unplug it from the power and the internet

Thank you friend!
I have a question, what's the difference between this and any other programs?
Thank's!
Frami

An EASIER thing to do that doesn't involve wiping out your OS and hosting another OS is to use what is called "sandboxing".

www.trustware.com has a really good one.

In a nutshell, you install it, reboot. Anything that comes into your computer from the browser, limewire, media player, whatever (custom programs) can be undone with six mouse clicks. I've tested it on computers & infected them purposefully with limewire garbage to the point where there were over a dozen toolbars and more spyware than I could count. In six clicks - everything was back as it was when I first installed the program.
This WILL include anything you want to keep also, so you have to learn to use it and move things in/out of the bufferzone as you see fit. I use it on my pc to protect against flash drive infections, where it buffers then entire drive when I plug it in, I just have to be sure to move everything out of the zone that I want to have saved on the drive.
It's easier than it sounds, and much easier than ubuntu.

reply to post by Death_Kron


It's entirely possible that a virus can be programmed to notice that it's on a guest OS, but even still it has no access to the directory structure of your host OS and thus would not be able to infect any files other than that which is on the guest OS.

Originally posted by frami12
Thank you friend!
I have a question, what's the difference between this and any other programs?
Thank's!
Frami

Not sure what you mean. I mean VirtualBox is an application so like any other application it utilizes a bunch of 1's and 0's. Other than that the point is that you are not using any applications tied directly to your host OS to access the internet. For instance you are using a web browser installed in your guest OS to browse the net. Any information an application sends over the net can only contain information regarding what files and applications are installed on your guest OS and no information regarding what is on your host OS.

You could use a firewall to block any applications except for your web browser, but some virii actually silently hijack control of your firewall allowing any application to access the internet without your knowledge. If that virus is installed in your guest OS then all of your host OS applications are still safely blocked from the internet. Any damage done by any malicious software is only done to your guest OS and your host OS remains entirely safe. If need be you can always simply re-install your guest OS should it become damaged.

You forgot those nasty bugs that like key board memory. They use key board memory to bounce to what ever you are running with your key board.

Originally posted by Symbiot
reply to post by Death_Kron

 

It's entirely possible that a virus can be programmed to notice that it's on a guest OS, but even still it has no access to the directory structure of your host OS and thus would not be able to infect any files other than that which is on the guest OS.

Believe me, it is possible:

www.vistax64.com...

Originally posted by Death_Kron

Believe me, it is possible:

www.vistax64.com...

edit on 29/9/10 by Death_Kron because: bad link

The guys on that forum seem to be under the impression that a virus on the guest OS can only infect the host OS by scanning the shared drives which makes sense. That's why at the bottom of my post I recommended NOT setting up any network drives in the guest OS.

Originally posted by JBA2848
You forgot those nasty bugs that like key board memory. They use key board memory to bounce to what ever you are running with your key board.

Key logging is functioned through the OS so a virus would only have access to keys pressed in the guest OS and not the host OS.

reply to post by Symbiot


Your key borad is a shared driver. So is your mouse on a shared driver.

vil.nai.com...

reply to post by Symbiot


Fair enough mate, but I'd also present this:

Hypervisor rootkits have been created in academia only as proofs of concept. By exploiting hardware features such as Intel VT or AMD-V, this type of rootkit runs in Ring -1 and hosts the target operating system as a virtual machine, thereby enabling the rootkit to intercept all hardware calls made by the original operating system.[4] Unlike normal hypervisors, they do not have to load before the operating system, but can load into an operating system before promoting it into a virtual machine.[4] A hypervisor rootkit does not have to make any modifications to the kernel of the target in order to subvert it—however that does not mean to say that it cannot be detected by the guest operating system, as timing differences may for example be detectable in CPU instructions.[4] The "SubVirt" laboratory rootkit, developed jointly by Microsoft and University of Michigan researchers, is an academic example of a virtual machine based rootkit (VMBR),[27] while Blue Pill is another.

Link: en.wikipedia.org...

I read a paper about it once aswell, I'll try and find it for you and link to the thread.

reply to post by JBA2848


Those drivers are installed in the OS. The host OS has a driver for the mouse/keyboard and the guest OS has it's own driver for the mouse/keyboard.

reply to post by Death_Kron


Interesting, but on a multi-core processor you can set Vbox to use only one of the cores which ought to limit the viruses data feed. By limiting it to one core when the host is using more than one the virus would only intercept fragments of data and thus unlikely to interpret what the whole data is. Just thoughts based on your posting there.

reply to post by Symbiot


It gos from the driver to the memory chip inside the keyboard then sets up shop and spreads. They have new ones coming out on a regular basis that have adapted to newer computers.

reply to post by JBA2848


Do you have a link? A virus that could store itself in the memory chip on a keyboard would have to be no more than a couple of lines of code, I couldn't imagine it doing much of any damage if it's just a couple lines of code.

reply to post by Symbiot


I'd agree in principle, will have to check tomorrow and try and find the paper I read, it's getting a bit late now and I'm off to bed shortly, I'll post back in the morning

www.computing.net...

verma123 March 3, 2010 at 13:54:44 Pacific
Windows Vista


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

can anyone help me please. I am very upset with the problem I am facing.

Some virus disabled my keyboard. The behavior of the virus was, that it opened up start and itself type something to search and disables the keyboard.
Then keyboard does not work even after restart.

I am even not able to go into BIOS.
onscreen keyboard worked, but after few times it also worked partially.

when I re-start my laptop, multiple beep sound comes.

neither of AVIRA , Macafe, Nortan scan helped.
except there were some detections in temporary internet files, which helped in starting just once.
After that the attack was back and this time scan did not even detected in temp.

Then I just came to know that this virus creates some Low folder in %TEMP%
I tried deleting it manually some times, but it just gave my computer some more breaths.

I was tired searching the problem on internet, then i formatted all my drives except recovery and reinstalled windows vista.

Saddest part is now that even after that the problem still persists.
my keyboard is still disabled.
Can anyone please help me out

Thanks,
[v v]

This would be a keyboard virus. Even after she restored her system it still happened because its in the hardware "keyboard memory chip".

reply to post by JBA2848


Oh haha... I see what you're saying with that one. Well at least a keyboard virus isn't hard to remedy since keyboards can be had for five bucks, or even free if you know a tech head that has plenty of unused computer parts lying around.

reply to post by Death_Kron


Righteo. I should admit that I didn't mean to imply that this method was full proof, no form of defense against anything is full proof to the best of my knowledge. I'm quite confident that this method can defend against the majority of everyday malicious software/hackers.