Windows security and tweaking for a poker player

[Efiriti]

Windows security and tweaking for a poker player



When playing poker one easy thing to forget is security. Any computer in the world can have their security compromised, and if the computer is connected to the internet it’s like you are inviting someone in. I've gathered some tips and tweaks for windows that will make your system run smoother and will make it more secure.


Firewall

The most important part of your internet security is a firewall. Windows comes with a firewall already built in but this firewall is very insecure and with basic settings it’s easily exploitable. A 3rd party firewall is highly recommended.

How firewall works is that it controls the access in and out from your computer. When a program tries to access your computer from the internet the firewall will ask you if you want to grant it access. If you do not know the program you should not give it access. Basic windows firewall only does this part without asking you and blocks most attacks coming in.

A 3rd party firewalls also controls the access out of your computer. When a program on your computer wants to access the internet the firewall will block it and ask for permission. If you don’t know the program you should not let it access the internet. I also recommend running a virus scan if weird programs are trying to access the internet. For programs that you trust and use all the time the firewall can be set to accept ingoing and outgoing connections without asking for permission.

ZoneAlarm

http://www.zonealarm.com/


Comodo Firewall

http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/firewall.php

I recommend using either ZoneAlarm or Comodo. Both of them are free and offer good basic security.

 
Antivirus

The second most important program is antivirus. Antivirus regularly scan your computer for viruses and monitors the files being used and scans them. If your computer has a virus the antivirus will either delete it or move it to a quarantine so the virus can’t be executed. Don’t be fooled that every virus scanner can catch every virus. Your virus scanner is only as good as the database it has. If it doesn’t know the virus it can’t catch it. It is highly recommended to update the virus scanner often. Most of the programs will check for updates automatically and update themselves.

What antivirus programs do is they look for signatures in a code that’s being executed that match with a know virus. They also monitor the key system files and monitor if any piece of code is trying to modify them. Sometimes this can cause good programs to be flagged as a virus by mistake and especially AVG antivirus is famous for doing this.

You should not run more than 1 antivirus program in your computer as they will start to interfere with each other and cause problems.

Antivirus programs like McAfee and AVG should be avoided because they run a lot of background processes and slow down your computer. For commercial use better options are for example F-Secure or ESET NOD32. For home use I would recommend Avira. It’s free, light weight, updates automatically and is only little behind with the databases of the commercial ones.

Avira Antivirus

http://www.free-av.de/

Only bad thing with Avira is that it shows annoying pop-ups quite often. To disable this feature follow the instructions in

http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm


Malware

Malware includes viruses and other programs that are harmful for your system. These are Trojans, keyloggers, worms and spyware for example. Some of these are not really a virus, but more like annoying advertisements and private data collectors that slow down your computer and annoy you. To stop the malware there are three great programs I use.

SpyBot Search & Destroy

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

Spybot scans your computer for malware and deletes them. It can also immunize your system against known malware so they can’t get inside in the first place. It has another great functionality in it called TeaTimer that protects your windows registry, but we’ll return to that a little later.

CCleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/

CCleaner will also check your computer for malware and it comes with few good extra features. You can delete all your private data from your browsers with CCleaner, but the one I like the most is the registry cleaner. Registry cleaner will backup your registry and then remove all unused registry items for you.

Last great function is startup programs. You can enable and disable programs that will start when your windows starts. For example I don’t want iTunes running Mobile service on the background taking up memory when I don’t use an iPod or iPhone.

NoScript

http://noscript.net/

When you browse the internet, the websites you visit will run scripts on your computer that can do many things. They can be helpful or harmful. NoScript is kind of a web browser firewall that doesn’t allow the scripts to be run without permission. Just because you visit a website doesn’t mean the scripts are coming from that website. A lot of websites have banners and advertisements that are loaded from a different website. With NoScript when you browse a website you know and trust, you can only allow scripts to be run from that particular site, not from the advertisement sites or you can ban scripts completely if you don’t know the site. This is a big help to stop Malware infecting your system.


Web browsing

For browsing the web I do not recommend Internet Explorer. It is the slowest browser and it has the most vulnerabilities. Any one of these three is much better option.

Mozilla Firefox

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Opera

http://www.opera.com/

Google Chrome

http://www.google.com/chrome

Firefox is my pick but all three but all of them do the job well. I like Firefox because of its ability to store passwords in a secure way.


Passwords

Firefox Master Password

There’s a lot of websites that require username and password. It is hard to remember all of them, and to use same username and password all the time is insecure. I like using Mozilla Firefox to store all my passwords but it’s insecure if anyone can just come and read your passwords. To avoid this Firefox has a feature called Master Password.

Master Password is basically one password that you need to remember to use the other passwords. When you start a new session with Firefox and go into a website that you have username and password stored, instead of asking for them Firefox will ask for the Master Password. This way you only have to remember one password and your other passwords will be safe. A Master password can be set it: Tools -> Options -> Security -> Master Password

Clipperz

http://www.clipperz.com/

If you are not using the same computer all the time there’s a lot of programs available that will store your passwords online for you in similar way that Firefox does. All the passwords are encrypted locally in your machine so the online service will not actually even know them. Probably the best program out there is Clipperz

Keepass Password Safe

http://keepass.info/

Another program to store passwords locally in your computer is Keepass Password Safe. It works the same way as Firefox Master Password but it’s another program and you can store anything in it, credit card details, banking information, personal information etc.


Program updates

We all have a lot of different programs running in our computer, Poker client, MySQL, iTunes, Skype, MSN, you name it. Every program is a potential security threat and it’s good to keep all of them updated in the latest version. It’s a pain in the ass to check all of them manually so there’s a great program that does it for you.

Secunia PSI

http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

It scans your computer and checks all the installed programs and checks from the Secunia database if there’s an update available. If an update is available the program will even download it for you and all you have to do is install the package.


Windows registry

I talked a little bit about windows registry earlier. Windows registry is a place where all the programs store different configurations and settings to interact with your system. When programs are installed and uninstalled the registry can get really big and it will slow down your system. Plus it’s a potential security threat. To keep your registry clean and safe I recommend the CCleaner registry cleaning function that was mentioned earlier and TeaTimer, a feature in Spybot Search & Destroy.

TeaTimer

TeaTimer works like a firewall to your registry. Any time a program wants to change any information in the registry TeaTimer will ask for your permission. Only problem with TeaTimer is that it’s a bit heavy and runs on the background but I haven’t found any other free program that monitors the registry like it does and I want that function in my system.


Encrypting

If you have private information in your computer it’s often a good idea to encrypt them. If your computer is stolen unencrypted files are really easy to access.

TrueCrypt

http://www.truecrypt.org/

TrueCrypt is a program that will encrypt the whole hard drive or a part of it for you. It uses algorithms such as AES-256 that is approved by US government to be used for top secret information, so your data is really hard to recover. You need to set up a password for the encrypted partition and without the password the data can’t be accessed.

I don't have the whole hard drive encrypted but what I've done is encrypted a part of it. I keep all my personal data in the encrypted part. I've also installed all the poker software in the encrypted part instead of usual C:\Program Files\ so if it's not mounted my software can't be run.


Online behavior

When browsing the internet use your head. A website containing pictures of naked girls is much more likely to infect your system. Also if you are using pirated software you put your system under risk. Especially programs are dangerous because they can contain viruses and if your antivirus doesn’t catch it you have no way of checking them. Now even matroska (usually used for high resolution videos) files can contain a virus. Also keep your private information exactly that, private. Don’t give account numbers or credit card details to a website you don’t trust 100%. When using credit card online make sure the website uses encryption to send the details over the connection, like SSL.


Wireless network

If you are using wireless network connection use WPA encryption rather than WEP. WEP encryption can be easily cracked in about 20 minutes using a normal laptop with wireless connection. WPA on the other hand is much more secure. If possible do not use wireless at all so no-one can acquire your packages and decrypt them.


Windows updates

Windows updates should be turned on all the time. Not installing the updates leaves huge security holes in your system. If the automatic reboot after the update is installed is annoying you it can be disabled by doing: Start / Run / gpedit.msc / Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update / Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations and setting the state for Disabled.


System processes

Windows comes up with a lot of system process running in the background that are not required for normal home user. They eat out CPU power and some of them can be an actual security loophole. I won’t write a big article about them but rather point you to a great website for disabling windows processes.

http://www.blackviper.com


Software

There’s a lot of software that are famous for being heavy, clumsy and/or exploitable. Here’s my recommendations for the most common software.

Media players

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Don’t use Windows Media Player, Quicktime or Real Player. All of them are heavy and full of useless features. If I would have to choose I would use the normal Windows Media Player. Much better alternative is VLC Player. It’s light and supports pretty much all codecs know to man.

Instant Messaging

http://www.pidgin.im/

We all use instant messaging, some of use use MSN, some Yahoo, some IRC etc. All the native clients have extra things that are not needed like advertisements. For instant messaging the best choice is definitely Pidgin. It’s extremely light, easily configurable and supports all the networks. Only downside is the lack of video conversation at the moment which is still under development.

Pdf and Flash

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/index.html

Products from Adobe are famous for being full of security holes. Instead of using the standard Adobe Reader for your .pdf –files there’s another light weight free option available called Sumatra. It does pretty much everything Adobe does but better.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433

Another program full of security loops is Flash player. I still like to watch some flash videos on cardrunners for example so I don’t want to disable it completely. What I’ve done is installed a plug-in for Firefox called Flashblock that doesn’t allow any flash content to play without user permission.


If you got any questions feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Efiriti

[hardluck]

NIce list of notes with these things. I'm sure it is usefull to some users which use computers daily, but actually doesn't know that much about those.

ps. after testing so damn many free firewalls during years, I really prefer comodo in use.

[bet-a-pot]

I did a small research on firewalls and antivirus softwares when installing my computer, and I found that Comodo Internet Security with both, firewall and antivirus, is the best free software available.

Would recommend Comodo to others as well.

http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php

[Joe]

Here's a test of Anti-Virus programs, February 2010. http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/s ... port25.pdf

Avira and Avast seem to be a very good free choices. Microsoft's Security Essentials (also free) isn't that bad either.