How do I block trojans and the man sending them to me?

Transcript

I keep getting Trojan spyware. I clean them through Immune Protect . A man from Utah is sending these Trojans. How do I block the Trojans and that person?

So, I don’t really know how you are getting them. There are a lot of details that factor into that kind of operation.

The best approach is to set up a strong defense and I’ll just go back to the common thing to making sure that you have a good set of anti-spyware, anti-virus tools in place – that you’re behind a firewall.

Trojans – If they’re coming in through your network, you want to make sure your firewall is there. If they’re coming through email, then it becomes a matter of making sure that you’re not doing things that actually invite the Trojans in, like clicking on attachments or running files that you shouldn’t be running.

How do you block that person? You don’t. We don’t know who that person is; we don’t know where they’re coming from. It’s very difficult to identify a specific person for any kind of incoming threat like that; at least with the resources that are available to the average individual – people like you and me.

So, the only real solution that I’m aware of is to a) make sure your machine is clean because obviously if there’s already spyware on your machine, then all of your defenses are actually for naught because once your machine is infected, it can do anything. And once your machine is clean, make sure it stays clean by having the right set of security software in place.

And I’ll quickly point you at the article I have on my site. It’s actually right there on the homepage. One of the popular answers, ‘What Security Software do you recommend?‘ I throw…here’s the short version, right, you’ll be behind a router, which will act as your firewall, which is exactly the way that I’m operating here.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a fine, fine anti-virus, anti-spyware, malware scanner. Install that. Make sure your machine is up-to-date and if you do travel, if you do take your computer into locations where you’re not behind your own firewall, not behind your own router, make sure you turn on the Windows firewall whenever you’re out and about.

Or alternatively, typically these days, there’s actually nothing wrong with leaving the Windows firewall on all of the time. To be honest, I can’t even remember the state on the computers that I’m looking at here because if it’s on, it’s just not getting in the way and that’s all I really care about.

The firewall is just…if it’s not impacting me, then there’s no reason not to leave it on. And I’m able to do what I need to do between all of my machines regardless of, like I said, I can’t even remember whether it’s on or off right now.