Blackjacking

Many companies are realizing significant return on investments and productivity gains by extending their enterprise information to mobile employees. With increased demand for mobile content and the threat of information theft, companies have security at the top of their list when evaluating wireless solutions. This white paper throws some light on the various threats to BlackBerry devices and some solutions/recommendations to counter them.

With a tremendous amount of existing market share, support across varied service providers, robust functionality, and the “coolness” factor, Blackberry’s truly are everywhere. Many people feel that Blackberry’s are inherently secure. Until quite recently, there haven’t been any major BlackBerry security vulnerabilities discussed in the press, unlike the many laptop vulnerabilities that are discussed on at least a monthly basis, mainly due to the supporting operating system.

This inherent sense of security is misplaced. It is true that BlackBerry’s are not overtly insecure and that they don’t have nearly the public vulnerabilities of laptop computers. That is a good thing. Notwithstanding, if it’s a computer (which a BlackBerry definitely is), it can and will be exploited. To think that no one is trying to write exploits and take advantage of all those BlackBerry’s out there being used by corporations around the world would be a significant mistake.

Common threats to BlackBerry’s include
• Malware
• Direct Attacks
• Intercepting BlackBerry communication
• Spoofing and intercepting authentication
• Physically compromising the BlackBerry

Malware Is Threatening Your BlackBerry
Malware is the most publicly known of all security threats to computer systems. Since BlackBerry’s are computers, they are also susceptible to this threat. Company A prides itself on being a technically progressive company. They have hundreds of employees traveling on a daily basis. Their CIO quickly realized that they needed to implement a state-of-the-art mobile communications solution to ensure that their mobile workforce was quickly, easily, and securely able to check email, make phone calls, and surf the Internet for information from just about any location at any time. After carefully researching a solution, they decided to move forward with an enterprise BlackBerry Solution.

The company’s CISO felt very comfortable with the solution, as BlackBerry has maintained a nearly impeccable reputation for security in the marketplace. In relatively short order, the solution was implemented and the staff members were pleased with the communication solution. In direct competition with Company A was Company B. The two businesses were in a heated battle to secure an extremely large contract that would make one company and essentially break the other. Tensions were extremely high between the companies. The decision date for the companies to make/break the deal was only a few days away. Therefore, many of Company A’s executives were traveling to the prospect’s offices and between Company A’s offices in an effort to secure the business. Clearly, utilizing their new BlackBerry’s to stay connected was a huge advantage, as the situation was shifting hourly. The BlackBerry’s had become invaluable and most people in the company relied upon them solely for their out-of-office communication needs. While schmoozing a key decision-maker at the prospective client’s company at a Cubs game, the CEO of Company A stayed in contact with his company via his BlackBerry. He opened numerous emails from numerous sources, which included Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and even some faxes sent via email. The key decision-maker commented on how this was crunch time and that his team would be making a decision imminently.

While the CEOs enjoyed a hotdog and a cold beer, their teams were hard at work on the deal. Shortly after listening to Mike Ditka sing during the seventh-inning stretch, the CEO of Company A received a frantic phone call from his CIO. For some reason, their mobile workforce was having significant issues with sending and receiving file attachments with their BlackBerry’s. This capability would be lost for nearly a half hour at a time, then magically be restored, only to be lost again. This was a significant issue, as key personnel needed to continuously share important pricing and contractual documents with the personnel at the company offering the make-or-break opportunity. This technical problem was going to make Company A lose the deal.

Analyzing a Malware Attack
What actually happened to Company A was a Malware-initiated denial-of-service (DoS) attack. This attack was launched with the hope and intention of disrupting communication within the company and was spearheaded illegally by the competition. With Company A’s personnel unable to efficiently share information during crunch time, the competition felt it would have an advantage in securing the lucrative contract. This scenario took advantage of a number of different vulnerabilities, some technical and some not. The first vulnerability was related to social engineering. This one was pretty easy and didn’t require any technical means. At an industry event earlier that year, an intoxicated DA, Inc. employee was bragging about how his company was so much better than the competition, even stating that his sales force’s new BlackBerry blew away the competition’s dinosaur like laptops; and who would you rather deal with as a customer: a dinosaur or a company that’s cutting-edge? That single incident alerted the competition to what technology Company A was using.

The second step was the technical means to implement the DoS attack. Knowing that Company A was using BlackBerry’s, the CEO of the competition hired an underground hacker to come up with a way to thwart the competition. The hacker searched the Web for BlackBerry exploits and found a DoS vulnerability. If he were able to implement this DoS attack, he could disrupt the competition’s communications. Doing so would make it more difficult for Company A to conduct business during this critical time, and that could be enough to win the contract. To implement the DoS attack, the hacker was going to follow a process common among those wanting to implement attacks:
• Gather information
• Set up for the attack (including a way to cover his tracks)
• Launch the attack

Gathering Information
Gathering key information about the people involved in the deal was easy to do. This industry was fairly small and everyone pretty much knew everyone else. Even their email addresses were known. But even if it hadn’t been a small industry, the hacker could have determined this information by
• Looking at the competitor’s website, which listed key people at the company
• Calling the company directly and asking for the head of sales, legal, etc

Setting Up for the Attack and Covering His Tracks
The hacker planned to launch this attack from email and if all worked well, this exploit would help disrupt communication and enable Company B to win business. Sending an email is obviously a pretty easy thing to do. Sending an email anonymously is another story. So, the hacker has created a fake email address from which to launch the attack. He also knows that he needs to figure out a way to hide his real IP address, or at least not send the email from an IP address that is linked to him.

This could be done a couple of different ways:
• Sending the email from a free public Wi-Fi hotspot
• Using an anonymizer to hide the real IP address

Launching the Attack
The hacker then drafts the email and sends it to a few email addresses. He needs to get the users to open an attached .tif file that will trigger the DoS attack. He takes advantage of the fact that it is common for faxes to be sent via email in a .tif format. Without question, any person receiving the email would want to read the attachment and respond to it immediately.

The actual exploit takes place as each addressee opens the attachment. Users think they are doing something as innocent as attempting to open an important file attachment, but in reality they are unknowingly causing a critical portion of their communication infrastructure to go down.
Here’s how it happens: The .tif file sent in the attachment is actually malformed. When someone attempts to open the attachment, it crashes the Attachment Service on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. With the Attachment Service down, nobody in the company can receive any attachments. Because urgent, valid attachments need to be sent and received to help win the big deal, this poses a big problem to Company A.

Protecting Against This Attack
There are numerous means by which the aforementioned exploit could have been prevented. In addition, there are steps that enterprises need to take to prevent future Malware attacks from occurring. This section goes over ways to prevent this specific attack from occurring, as well as define ways to prevent future BlackBerry-related Malware attacks.

BlackBerry identifies the problem by saying the following:
• A corrupt Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) file sent to a user may stop a user’s ability to view attachments.
• There is no impact on any other services (for example, sending and receiving messages, making phone calls, browsing the Internet, and running BlackBerry wireless device applications to access a corporate network).
• The BlackBerry Attachment Service automatically restarts either immediately or within a specified time period (the default is 25 minutes). The administrator can restart the Attachment Service at any time.
• You may notice the portion about the automatic, default restart of the Attachment Service after 25 minutes. In our example, the default restart is why mobile users were able to view attachments intermittently. The service would restart itself, then a different user would attempt to view the malformed .tif, only to inadvertently crash the Attachment Service again.

To protect BlackBerry Enterprise Servers from this exploit, BlackBerry offers Service Pack Hotfixe’s. In addition, there is a workaround where administrators can disable the processing of .tif’s or can disable attachments altogether. Depending upon the enterprise in question, this may not, in and of itself, be disruptive. However, it would make a whole lot of sense for a company under this attack to filter out the .tif’s while it makes plans to follow the aforementioned upgrade procedures.

To exclude TIFF images from being processed by the Attachment Service as part of the workaround, do the following:
1. On the desktop, click Start Programs  BlackBerry Enterprise Server BlackBerry ESC.
2. Click the Attachment Server tab.
3. In the Format Extensions field, delete the .tiff and .tif extensions.
4. Click Apply then click OK.
5. In Microsoft Windows Administrative Tools, double-click Services.
6. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service then click Stop.
7. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service then click Start.
8. Close the Services window.

Even though the .tiff and .tif extensions have been removed from the list of supported file types, the Attachment Service may automatically detect a TIFF file with a renamed extension and attempt to process the file. Administrators may need to disable the image attachment distiller.

To disable the image attachment distiller, follow these steps:
1. On the desktop, click Start Programs BlackBerry Enterprise Server BlackBerry ESC.
2. On the Attachment Server tab, select Attachment Server from the Configuration Option drop-down list.
3. In the Distiller Settings section of the window, clear the Enabled check box for Image Attachments.
4. Click Apply then click OK.
5. In Administrative Tools, double-click Services.
6. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service then click Stop.
7. Right-click BlackBerry Attachment Service then click Start.
8. Close the Services window.

When protecting just about any piece of computer equipment, you must know your system’s vulnerabilities and know the specific steps you need to take to protect against them. Clearly, BlackBerry is aware of this vulnerability. It is extremely naïve to think that any computer system can exist and not have vulnerabilities. They can and will occur; it’s a fact of life with technology. That being said, it is the responsibility of the vendor to provide detailed information on vulnerabilities as they are discovered and to provide specific steps to prevent them. While BlackBerry and other vendors may do so, it is ultimately up to the enterprise to educate themselves and take the appropriate steps. Security is an ongoing process. You don’t simply set up a server or system in a manner that is considered to be secure for that time, and then forget about it. Constant vigilance is required!

Learning about New Vulnerabilities
There are quite a few very good Internet sites and email-subscription services that can enlighten administrators to new vulnerabilities to not only their BlackBerry devices, but to just about any computer technology. To protect enterprise BlackBerry’s, it is important to know about these sites and services and to take advantage of their knowledge.

BlackBerry Antivirus Software
In addition to taking the previously mentioned measures, it is important to be knowledgeable about antivirus solutions for BlackBerry’s, just as it is to do so for laptops, desktops, and other computer systems.

I have started www.sunilsaripalli.com

Finally, 1 year after registering my domain name i have setup my blog at www.sunilsaripalli.com.

I would continue to use wordpress, because wordpress is something l like the most, and even at www.sunilsaripalli.com i have used wordpress only….

Thanks for your Support
Ur
Sunil

Find out the Country (Location) of the person you are chatting with.

If you are chatting with a person on Yahoo Messenger, do you know how to find the Location of the person you are chatting with? You can use a simple command and some googling to find out the location of the person you are chatting with.

 

When ever you use the Internet, in fact any network, the communication should happen between 2 Computers which are uniquely identified by 2 IP Address. But in most cases these IP Address might not be unique for your Computer but unique for your ISP. Simply speaking the router at your ISP is connected to the Internet. The connection between your computer and your ISP is a local network. Your ISP Routers acts as the middle man is making the Internet requests on your behalf and getting the Internet results back to your machine. So you can in most cases trace back an internet connection to the ISP, i.e. to the Country, State, City and ISP.

 

When ever you chat with a person using Yahoo Messenger your messages are sent to a Yahoo Server and the Server relays the messages to the person you the chatting with. So if you find the IP Address in such a scenario you will find the IP Address of the Server but not of the person who is chatting with you. Yahoo Messenger uses P2p Technology when you transfer a file from your system to the other persons system. So when you find out the IP Address of the Destination Computer when you do a Yahoo File Transfer you can actually find out the IP of the other person and hence the location.

 

When you are trying to find out the Location of the person chatting with you, you should make him accept a file transfer request, in this way a connection would be established between your computer and his computer. Remember to send a file which is at least 3-4 MB in size so that you have some time to capture the active connections. Once he accepts and the file transfer starts, open command prompt and type the command netstat –n, this would give active TCP Connections on each Port.

 

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name>netstat –n

 

Active Connections

 

  Proto  Local Address          Foreign Address        State

  TCP    10.0.0.9:1101          10.0.0.191:1025      ESTABLISHED

  TCP    10.0.0.59:1881        10.0.0.184:1372      ESTABLISHED

  TCP    10.0.0.59:2301        208.88.182.2:80      ESTABLISHED

  TCP    10.0.0.59:2302        208.88.182.3:80      ESTABLISHED

  TCP    10.0.0.59:2303        208.88.182.3:80      ESTABLISHED

 

C:\Documents and Settings\User Name>

 

The out put of netstat –n command would be something similar to the above. From the above list you need to filter the Foreign Address filed to get the IP Address of the Person chatting with you. When you are trying this close all Internet Applications like Messengers and File Sharing application and close all browser windows. Then you would have very few results and you can easily filter the IP Addresses.

 

You can use the Wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netstat to find more about the Netstat command.

 

You can use the Wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers to filter the foreign address based on port numbers.

 

Once you find the IP Address you can go a site like http://tools.whois.net/whoisbyip/  to find who is of that IP Address. Whois basically gives details like the address of registration, company name and contact details.

 

To find your own IP Address you can use the command ipconfig /all.

 

If you need any further clarification please get back to me.

 

 

 

Think before you print…

I would dedicate this Blog for the environment. I am someone who never thought about the environment, for example I always used to throw the paper plates I eat and cool drink bottles I drink out of my car onto the road without even thinking, What am I doing? I never felt it wrong until I had a friend, who doesn’t like to do that. After her warning me few times I realized what I am doing. And now I don’t drop them out but drop them in a dust bin.

 

It’s a very small thing which we need to do and these small things would cumulate to make a difference. I would also say that we need to educate people around us that small things make a big difference. So my Blog today would be part Technical and part Nature Saving.

 

I would like to talk about Printers and printing. What is the cost of an Inkjet Printer? The answer would be a few thousand rupees depending on the functionality of the printer. What is the cost of the Ink Cartridge? The answer would be a few thousand rupees depending on the make and model of the Cartridge. I have seen printers in the market which sell for 3000 INR and the cost of the Ink Cartridge would be 2000 INR. So is the actual cost of the printer 1000 INR.

 

The answer would be No. The Printer manufacturers actually sell the printer at a loss and would make up by selling the Ink Cartridges. On an average an Inkjet Printer Cartridge would last for around 500 prints or 6 Months. So if you buy a printer and use it for 3 years you are actually paying him 3000+12000=15000 INR.

 

You might say that we can use off-market or refilled cartridges, then you need compromise on print quality and manufacturer warranty for your printer. So when are you thinking of buying a Printer choose Laser over Inkjet. Because laser printers use Toner in place of ink and would last few thousand copies compared with the few hundred copies inkjet cartridges last.

 

Also make it a habit to print on both sides of the paper. Agreed it would need some effort if you don’t have a printer that supports duplex printing, but you can always print odd pages first and then print the even pages. 

 

Hi to all

Hi to everyone who are visiting my Blog…sorry for not posting blogs in the last 2 months…i have shifted from CTS to Deloitte and an trying to find my feet in Deloitte…so not finding the time to blog..but i would be back to myself sometime soon and my blogs will flow…..

One of my friend had a small idea and we want to materialise it…the idea was to start a website on conserving the environment…..we have registered a domain and hosted a template at www.save2survive.com do look at the template and get back with ur comments….i would also encourage active participation of all of you people becuase its something for all of us….we would be hosting a blog and updating the stuff shortly…ur contibutions and comments are welcome…

As per my blogs goes i can promise you a blog a day from now on…..keep comming back…feel free to ask if you need some technical help…if i dont have the solution i will try to get it for you….and remember to post some comments….which is something which would encourage me to blog even better……those comments….would be the energy for me……

A blog on Windows…

What is an Operating System? A good answer would be “A set of programs that provide a GUI to interact with various devices in a computer”. This definition would hold good until a few years back, when an operating system is just a few icons and menus that you see when you switch on your computer. Operating systems provided file and device management using a Basic GUI.

But with the development of computers, operating systems also evolved a lot. From simple file and device management solution, modern day operating systems should be stable and secure the data stored on a computer. The data stored on a computer can be anything from music, movies and photos to data that you have generated and stored in different files. It takes only a small virus, a power surge or a device failure to destroy data.

 

Today’s operating systems try to anticipate such scenarios and issue warning messages and take pro-active steps to minimize the data loss. I would talk about Windows XP and Windows Vista because 80% of computers run on Windows Operating system and Windows Vista is an upgrade to Windows XP.

 

Windows XP has been around for 8 years now and in considered one of the best operating systems released by Microsoft. When Windows XP was released it was considered a resource hogger. Windows XP required 128 MB of RAM to run smoothly. And there are many complaints from long installation times to frequent crashes. Microsoft released Service Pack 1 and things changed. Most of the security holes are fixed and Windows XP became stable. Windows XP was built to give a better user experience by easy installation and plug & play capability.

 

After a few years with XP, internet threats have grown and Microsoft started bundling Anti-spyware products along with Windows XP. This didn’t help much, and since Windows XP is the most used, hackers tried to find ways to break into Windows XP systems. This triggered the need for a more secure operating system and there came Windows Vista into picture.

 

Some of the problems with Windows XP are that password protection is not secure enough, users can use Bootable live CD’s like miniPE or Road Starter to bypass Passwords and access the file system. The other major issue is Internet Explorer 6 which is the number one target for hackers. By exploiting the security homes in IE6 hackers can take control of IE and hence the Windows XP box. And last but not least, when you try to search for a file under Windows XP, you have a terribly slow search tool.

 

Now its Windows Vista which is structurally more robust and is much more visually appealing. Vista comes with Encrypted File System (EFS) which takes care of file level security. Vista allows one to encode an entire partition or hard disk with just a few clicks. In Windows Vista Internet Explorer runs with restricted permission. If a malicious piece of code enters the system through the browser it cannot do much harm, since Vista simply refuses to permit to run it. File Searching has improved a lot with Vista.

 

 

But 2 of the night mares with Vista are getting your old hardware running and the annoying popup prompting you to allow or block any action you have performed.

Photography as a Hobby: Choosing a Digital Camera

Happy Valentine Day…to everyone…..Since today is Valentine day I have decided to blog on something other than computers…I have 2 options to choose from Nature and Photography, oops I should say 3, I have left out my desire for Cars and Driving. I have chosen to blog on Photography. That’s something which I am trying to work on these days.  

I have started Photography with a Kodak film camera later upgraded to a Yashika Camera, then was pulled into Digital Photography, I have used the first digital cameras from Sony which were 2-3 Mega-Pixels with 16-32 MB Compact Flash cards, later upgraded to a 5 Mega-Pixel Canon with a 512 MB Card. I was never a serious photographer until I bought an Olympus 710 a year ago, the photos I shot using the camera had tempted me to take photography as a hobby. Unfortunately I lost my Olympus 710 in my trip to Singapore and I have replaced with a Olympus 280, which is an 8 Mega-pixel one. I am looking for a DSLR and it’s in my wish list.  

If you are someone like me using a Digital Camera for 1-2 years now, then your next step would be to buy a Digital SLR camera. But, Which One? Would be very hard to answer. There are so many products out there offering a variety of Technologies. In this blog I will try to explain the knowledge I have gained in the last 6 months trying to find out the Digital SLR which fits my budget and passion. 

First question would be what should be the Mega-Pixel rating of my Digital SLR? Few people would say 8 or 10. And most if them would say the latest available in the market. I need your answer to another question to answer the above question. What are you going to do with the photos taken by the Digital SLR? If you want to take photos of ur friends, trips, function and post those photos on the web, e-mail them to friends or order small prints and put them in album, then a 2 mega-pixel cam would be more than enough for your needs. Entry level Digital SLR cameras start at 6 mega-pixels. Therefore if that’s all you want to do with your photos, the mega-pixels rating of your Digital SLR does not need to be a major concern. But, if you want to print large posters, you need a higher mega-pixel rating on your Digital SLR. All entry level SLR’s produce very good quality photos up to a certain size, more pixels gives you more freedom to enlarge even more.  

Which brand should you go with Canon or Nikon? Are you surprised that I have used only 2 names? Are these the only 2 brands that produce Digital SLR’s?  

The answer is pretty simple, these are the most popular brands and have most of the market share, but not all cameras from Nikon and Canon are great. Both the companies have produced some excellent and some ordinary brands. When buying a DSLR you should look for build quality. Observe the number of metal parts and the no of plastic parts in the camera body. Metal parts can be replaced, while plastic parts are not replaceable. So if the plastic part gets damaged you cannot get a replacement, you need to get yourself a new DSLR 2-3 years down the line. Next this is to check the feel of the Camera in your hand. You can feel the quality of build by holding it in your hand. Quality between brands is almost the same for the low end DSLR’s. However if you decide you don’t need a higher end camera, you can check other brands like Sony, Olympus etc. 

What features should I go for?  

Features can vary between the basic things like 6, 8, 10, 12 mega-pixels and Auto Dust Cleaning to advanced features like Live-View etc. To make things even worse each manufacturer gives a different name for the same technology. You need to do some research on the internet before taking the final decision.

I am tempted to give the url of www.cameralabs.com which is one of the best site I have found for camera review.  

Check this site when you are buying, also remember that when you buy a DSLR you need to buy a good lens or two to complement your DLSR.

How to troubleshoot your Mother Board?

Troubleshooting is the process of knowing the issue; determine the reason for that issue, finding a fix for the issue, applying the fix, then checking if the fix has fixed your issue. These are the steps you need to check before you fix any issue and putting everything back to normal. Before starting the process make sure that the issue has not resulted from a change in options in Windows Settings or BIOS or some Virus or Spyware activity.

Your mother board is the backbone or nervous system of your computer, every device in your computer depends on your mother board to ensure optimum functionality. It connects all the devices in a PC and checks that devices are communicating effectively between them. Common sign’s of mother board failure are that the PC won’t boot, doesn’t reach the BIOS test screen, scrambled text during and after the BIOS text screens, unusual system hangs, different combinations of devices not working.

Since all the devices are connected to the motherboard certain devices may not work if the mother board is having issues so be sure to test those devices before throwing then out and buying new devices.  First step would be a inspection of the mother board, to make sure all cables are connected properly, the fans are running at optimal speeds, and that the BIOS battery is working.

If the cables are not connected properly, the mother board may refuse to start. For example in some old mother boards you can connect the IDE Cable in the wrong direction. Ensure that PIN 1 on the mother board matches with the Color Coded Wire on the Hard Disk Cable.

Dying fans are another cause for mother board issues. An old fan would operate at lesser RPM and might not provide sufficient cooling for the CPU, and if the CPU temperature reaches a Particular level the Mother Board would halt the system. Also check for any broken or leaking capacitors and burn spots on the back of the mother board, these can immediately render a motherboard useless.  

Other major reason for Mother Board failure would be an ageing SMPS Units. You can test your power supply in 2 ways. There are software’s like Mother Board Monitor and ASUS PC Probe (works only with ASUS MB) which would give you details about the Voltages being used by the Mother Board or you need to get a spare SMPS and test it by swapping with your current SMPS.

If you can borrow a friends mother board you can try exchanging the motherboard with yours to see if it resolves your issues, if your PC works fine then you need a mother board replacement. If you think the motherboard is faulty and it is still in warranty you should be able to send it back to the manufacturer for a new one. Ensure that when you buy a mother board you should keep all of the packing and the box and warrenty cards, and there would be some labels that will bar the warranty if tampered with make sure you do NOT tamper them.

Unable to access Orkut with an error messages “Orkut is banned you fool”…

Unable to access Orkut with an error messages “Orkut is banned you fool”…then read further for the solution. Your system is infected with Heap41a Virus.Below is the removal process

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL Click “Task Manager”, button.
2. Go to the processes tab and look for svchost.exe. There will be many but look for the ones which have your username under the “username” column.
3. Select the Process and click the button “End process”. It will give you a warning, simply press Yes
4. Repeat for other svchost.exe files with your username.

Note: Do not kill svchost.exe under system, local service or network service.

1. Now you need to delete the files in the folder Heap41a which is present in the root folder. Heap41a is a hidden folder, to unhide go to Tools > Folder Options Go to View Tab and select “Show hidden Files and Folders” or Type C:\Heap41a in Start > Run and press enter.
2. Press CTRL + A to select all the files in this folder and select the Del Button.
3. Now go to Start > Run and type in regedit
4. Go to the menu Edit > Find
5. Type “Heap41a” here and press enter. You will get something like this “[winlogon] C:\heap41a\svchost.exe C:\heap(some number)\std.txt”
6. Select the key and Press DEL. It will ask “Are you sure you want to delete this value”, click Yes
7. Now close the registry editor and you are done.

Which is the best anti virus program now?

Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro are the Big 3 in the Antivirus Industry. They have several products which deliver.

In my 10 years of computer experience, in which i sold more than 200 computers, installed more than 1000 Computers and trouble shooted countless computers, i always feel that what ever the antivirus it should have the Latest Definitions to provide effective protection. It’s hard to clean a file which is infected with virus, so you should make sure that the virus doesn’t enter your system in the first place. For this you need to install the antivirus with the current definition files before connecting to the internet or opening any CD which you bought from your friend.

Norton is very slow, i have heard this from majority of my customers, but they should understand it depends on which version of Norton you are using. People generally use Norton Internet Security which is basically just not an Antivirus, but firewall, IDS, Antivirus and Anti spam in one application.

So when you compare running the above against AVG Antivirus which is a Virus only scanner your system would be definitely slow. But you should also take into account the protection if offers.

My first choice would be Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition 10 if you want a Virus and Spyware solution and Norton Internet Security if you want all in one solution. But remember Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro charge for subscription to get the updates.

I have used AVG in some cases and would give a 5 Star rating for its abilities.

If you want to pay for your Antivirus go with Symantec or McAfee. Free would be definitely AVG. If your system is infected with Virus and won’t allow the existing Antivirus to run a scan and won’t allow installation of New Antivirus you can use McAfee Stinger.

It’s a single EXE file which would run and clean the Viruses. You can copy the EXE file to a boot CD and run the Application booting of the CD and running. This would allow the EXE to run and clean viruses without loading the Windows file system and hence effective cleaning. 

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/polipstinger.asp 

Above link would allow you to download Stinger and has instructions on how to use it.

If you need any further clarification please get back to me.