Ask the Readers: What Security Related Questions Do You Want Us to Answer?

By Ciprian Adrian Rusen on Mon, 04/25/2011 - 14:51

If you have been following us for a while, you surely know about the Security for Everyone section, in which we regularly publish reviews of desktop security solutions for Windows. Since we covered most security vendors and their 2011 solutions, we would like to do research on other security related topics which might interests you. Therefore, we want to ask YOU, our readers: what do you want us to cover next in the area of security?

Our Ideas

We do have some ideas. The first, on which we already published articles, is about Security on Facebook. We ran a mini-series, which finished with a useful guide about How to Have a Safe & Pleasant Experience on Facebook.

Other ideas which we did not pursue yet, are:

  • Anonymity online;
  • Using BitTorrents anonymously;
  • Setting up a home based VPN;
  • Comparisons between “Total" Security Suites and the traditional Internet Security Suites - are they worth the extra money?
  • Reviews & benchmarks for free security solutions: free antivirus, antispyware, firewalls, etc.

talk & talk

YOUR Ideas

While we intend to continue with our reviews for security suites, as new versions become
available, we would like to hear which security topics matter most to you:

  • Are there specific applications or applications families you'd like us to review?
  • Do you have specific security questions you need help answering?
  • Are any of the ideas we shared in the previous section relevant for you?

The items above are simply idea starters. We're sure you have plenty more thoughts and we would love to read about them in the comments.

Related articles:

The Complex & Surprising Anatomy of a Home Network
Security on Facebook - How to Have a Safe & Pleasant Experience
Security for Everyone - Introducing the Series

Content: 
Blog
Security for Everyone

Comments

JohnnyG86 (not verified) - Mon, 04/25/2011 - 15:46

I think many people would like to know more about the new Zombie cookies and Evercookies. You know, the ones that you can't kill and that resurrect themselves, regardless of their name. Information on how to deal with them. Applications available to combat them and how to use them. That whole idea is sort of scairy and I don't see too much in the way information. Thank you.

Ciprian Adrian Rusen - Mon, 04/25/2011 - 16:32

That's a very good idea indeed. Thanks for sharing it.

Scott (not verified) - Tue, 04/26/2011 - 18:16

Since you asked .....

I use Dropbox. I like it. Alot. It's convenient and fast. But should I be concerned? And not just about Dropbox specifically but cloud based storage in general?

A recent article "Dropbox authentication: insecure by design" sparked lots of ongoing debate about Dropbox security:
> article - (http://dereknewton.com/2011/04/dropbox-authentication-static-host-ids/)
> debate - (http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=36146)

A second issue seems to center around its security terms of service:
> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Apr-19.html

An interesting possible solution to the problem though I know nothing about the product or company. They also make security solutions for other cloud based storage software.
> http://getsecretsync.com/ss/

James A. (not verified) - Thu, 04/28/2011 - 17:21

Hi, this is James with CompletelyPrivateFiles.com, the company behind the SecretSync product. We're a startup based out of Boise, Idaho. SecretSync is our latest product, in beta, and it tries to solve the problem of privacy in 'the cloud'.

With all cloud services, not just Dropbox, you have to trust them with your data. Think Salesforce, Box.net, etc. All your data is on their servers, wherever they may be, and even if they provide server-side encryption, there is some period of time where they have full access to your data. And if they have both the key and the encrypted data, this is the same as having access to the unencrypted data.

Our opinion is that easy, client-side encryption is the solution to improving the state of SaaS/cloud computing without losing the benefit.

Rick (not verified) - Wed, 04/27/2011 - 09:14

I realize you are looking for other topics, but I still have not seen a review on the AVAST Anti-Virus software ... either the free version which I have used for a couple years, or the paid version.
Have I somehow missed the review? I am sure many others use this A/V software since Cnet rates it the #2 A/V and shows over 141 million downloads as of today 4/26/11.

Thanks,

Ciprian Adrian Rusen - Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:37

We published a review for Avast! Internet Security 5.0.

Since you seem to be interested in free security products - would you enjoy some roundups of reviews for such free solutions?

Rick (not verified) - Wed, 04/27/2011 - 11:16

Hi Ciprian
You said " would you enjoy some roundups of reviews for such free solutions? ". I think that would be an excellent idea. A side by side comparison of each AV features along with each A/V's strong point(s) and weak point(s) would be very useful.

Thank you Ciprian for providing the link to the Avast review.

Steve (not verified) - Sat, 04/30/2011 - 14:18

What free anti viruses and anti malware programs work best together ? I always seem to have compatibility problems, epically with Avast installed.

Ann (not verified) - Sat, 04/30/2011 - 19:42

Should I leave my router firewall on with my Norton firewall?

Jeeepers (not verified) - Tue, 05/03/2011 - 04:05

I own a Dell laptop running windows 7 HP and Microsoft Security Essentials. The microsoft security program works great but I have noticed a peculiarity when I run Sysinternals Autoruns. I have at least 50 entries for security updates that are "file not found" showing under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services-
Example: MpKsl08803a2d File not found: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Definition Updates\{B358F420-7E8F-49F2-9816-B7AB6900FF46}\MpKsl08803a2d.sys

I was wondering if it would be safe to delete these autorun entries. The only one of these 50 some odd .sys system files that I can find is in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Antimalware\Definition Updates\
is in a folder called {BDC74176-0693-4331-8F00-AE74B00FE4EA}\MpKsI9162d675.sys;
dated with todays time stamp.

permisssionsguy (not verified) - Tue, 05/10/2011 - 14:02

hi , would love a comprehensive breakdown of permissions settings, like how i can check all my internal drives have the correct permissions assigned to them, as i have added drives on an adhoc basis,, and reinstalled win7 on maindrive several times, i now feel the permissions on the extra drives are still "afflicted?" with previous installation usernames?

also a breakdown of netsh commands like resetting winsock, and other mysterious commands that are quite handy to use to check system files are not corrupt?

thnx muchly

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