Basic security guide (firewall, backups, antivirus..) - not only for beginners

[testbug]

Hello there,

i have setup a guide for adding more security. Please leave me a comment if this was helpfull or not. Formattion and appearance is not perfect yet but will be changed soon

1.   Antirus – free version is not good enough
2.   Passwords
3.   Backups – Hardware/workstation
4.   Check for running RDP service
5.   Avoid unneeded software and uninstall them
6.   Setting up your own hardware based firewall
7.     Check if your emailadress/password and more has been leaked - haveibeenpwnd.com



1.   Antivirus
Antivirus is in these days more needed than ever. There are plenty of free antivirus software developers but if you want to have „real“ protection i would step away from free antivirus software.
There are good and quite cheap antivirus software includeing anti ransomware protection (you highly want this to be a part of your antivirus) and other usefull protection.
I can recommend:
- Bitdefender Internet Security (most recent version)
- TrendMicro Internet Security (most recent version)
- Kaskersky Internet Security (most recent version)
Whenever you are going to ask another IT guy about his antivirus preferences he, most likely, will name different antivirus software. As far as your choosen antivirus software has all the features you need it will most likely be good.
For all antivirus i know there is not much to be done after installation and activation. You should sometimes check if it’s doing antivirus definition updates and also a complete antivirus scan (once per week) should be fine.

2.   Passwords
Please ALWAYS use different passwords on different exchange ans pools. As a pool OP i can say that there are possibilitys to convert the encrypted user passwords into clear text. Meaning a pool scamming people might take your password and email combination and simply try to login in all known exchanges. Here are some basics:
-   Use different passwords on every cryptorelated website you use
-   Use VERY SAFE PASSWORDS for exchanges. I recommend useing a password with more than 12 characters includeing the complete range of characters being available.
-   If you have problems with remembering passwords here is a good trick to get better : Create a sentence and then take only first characters of the words. Here is an example:
-   I like cryptos because i think, once in a time cryptos will become great in 2018!  „Ilcbit,oiatcwbgi2018!“  Strong password (might need some more capital letter) and easy to remember

3.   Backups
For hardware based backups i prefer backing up to a NAS (network attached storage) or any other network share. I like network shares as you can make them „unmount“ after the backup is done. This can be very helpfull for any incomeing ransomware attack, as an un-attached backup media wont be encrypted, an attached USB HDD will be encrypted.
As the backup software i can highly recommend „Veeam Backup Agent for Windows Free“. If you are running on Linux you can also use Veeam, they have a version for Linux called „Veeam Backup Agent for Linux free“.
The good thing with Veeam Backup is: once installed and running, there wont be any problems. If there are problems you might have run out of free disk space or your hardware is damaged.
Please dont forget to install the Veeam Recovery Media. I used a cheap 8GB USB stick for my recovery media. We will need your media as soon as your workstation got infected, destroyed, hardware damage or anything. You can restore your complete Workstation, includeing all your personal files, wallet blockchains, emails, interent browser history and everything. You can even restore your workstation to complete different hardware. This feature is called „bare metal recovery“ and Veeam has everything you need.
I also suggest to copy your wallet.dat files to another USB drive. I am useing more expense USB sticks as they are better for longtime storage.
Important for your USB based wallet.dat backups: You never every are allowed to have the stick permanently attached to your workstation. As soon as ransomware or ereaser virus strikes in, your stick will be deleted and/or encrypted.
Please ALWAYS use secure password.

4.   Windows only: Check for RDP Service and disable if enabled
A very common and used attack vector of ransomware is over the RDP port. On most windows installations the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) will be disabled. TO check if it’s enabled do the following:
Hit start  go to control panel  go to system  on the left side: „Remote settings“  tab on the far right „Remote“  Check if „Remotedesktop“ ist o set to not allow any connection. If you need remote connection to your workstation i recommend useing a software like TeamViewer or different remote management software.

5.   Avoid uneeded software
Check your workstation for any unneeded or unupdated software. If you need the software, PLEASE check for updates. Even a winrar or 7zip can be used as attack vector. Very important are Windows updates: Don’t forget to propper update your windows system

6.   Setting up your own hardware based firewall
If you want to go tot he next level of security i would choose a hardware based firewall. If you are useing a router like DSL or cable there will be a „firewall“ included. Problem with included firewalls are that once a security breach is found, this single breach can be used to attack a whole range of different internet users. Hardware based firewall will add propper security to your network infrastruction. I will update the firewall chapter in few days, includeing useable and affordable hardware.

7.   Check if your emailadress/password and more has been leaked
I know that most recent browser versions are most likely doing a "password leak" check on all saved password. From time to time, i can advice you to do a quick and free password leak check on haveibeenpwnd.com. Even if your username/email and or password are leaked, there is nothing to worry about right now. Simply go to your accounts u are useing the same password (best is not to use same password on every service) and change is afap. If you have received emails about "invalid login" on your email account, you should also check that your password is a secure one. On most webservers/services it is not possible to "bruteforce" your passwords but attackers mit bug an encrypted database containing your email and password. As soon as they "opened" the complete database they can start to try out which account is worth enough to use it for an attack.
The worst thing which could happen is identity theft, might happen more easy than you expect.
Small example:
Hacker buys database and cracks it. He then logs in to you email account and notices "paypal/facebook" messages. Even if you did put an other password there, they will most likely use "forgot password". After they did capture your facebook account they might have all the informations needed to recet a paypal password, as most users will most likely enter the "real answers" to the security questions to reset your password on paypal. As soon as they hijacked your paypal, they will have:
Your real
- name
- address
- phone #
- bank accounts
So in basic, this are most informations they need to create online banking accounts. If they have hijacked your paypal, they could buy digital goods, send them to unknown adresses and your money might be gone.


Feel free to ask if you have any questions. I hope the guide is helpfull for some people. I would be happy receveing some feedback 

[1715593576]

1715593576

[Anycoin Direct Support]

Hello testbug,

In another thread on this topic we provided a list of 9 tips to help increase your security in the cryptocurrency space. You can find the message we posted here.

With kind regards,
The Anycoin Direct team 

[testbug]

Due to corona i thought a push up of my "Basic security guide" might be a good idea.
Most of the content i put here is still a good way in defending yourself from ransomware and different kind of viruses you do not want to get a victim of.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them, i am always happy to help

[GreatArkansas]

Additionally; Avoid connecting in some public networks, like public free wifi or wifi in some coffee shops, it could also risky.
And for the software part, also avoid using some cracked software because some of them could have some malware inside. Cracked softwares are very common in the Windows operating system.

[KrisAlex18]

Nice thread mate, securing our device is really important, we really need anti-virus on our computer or our mobile phone because I know that our transactions mostly happen on our device especially our money stored in our e-wallet. We should make our device free from the virus because those device that has virus are free from being broken and can be stolen your information once this virus has made by the hackers.

There is some virus that was made by the hackers, it tends to spy on your device and get some of your information, it will make them know more things about you and the worst thing is that they can access all of your accounts because of this virus. So it is really important that we should have an anti-virus on our device to be free in malware.

[Maus0728]

As for the antivirus and since I am using Windows, I think it is enough to just use Windows Defender instead of any other third party applications that can be found on the internet. It would just make your system far more insecure. Is it not?

In choosing your passwords. I definitely agree that a lengthy and easy to remember password with a combination of different special characters are good but we can also just use an open source password manager like Bitwarden and KeePass.

Hit start  go to control panel  go to system  on the left side: „Remote settings“  tab on the far right „Remote“  Check if „Remotedesktop“ ist o set to not allow any connection. If you need remote connection to your workstation i recommend useing a software like TeamViewer or different remote management software.

Anyways, I applied this tip. Is this somehow related to RAT (Remote Access Trojan) why we are not allowing remote access in our computer? Also, looking forward to the hardware based Firewall.

[testbug]

As for the antivirus and since I am using Windows, I think it is enough to just use Windows Defender instead of any other third party applications that can be found on the internet. It would just make your system far more insecure. Is it not?

In choosing your passwords. I definitely agree that a lengthy and easy to remember password with a combination of different special characters are good but we can also just use an open source password manager like Bitwarden and KeePass.

Hit start  go to control panel  go to system  on the left side: „Remote settings“  tab on the far right „Remote“  Check if „Remotedesktop“ ist o set to not allow any connection. If you need remote connection to your workstation i recommend useing a software like TeamViewer or different remote management software.

Anyways, I applied this tip. Is this somehow related to RAT (Remote Access Trojan) why we are not allowing remote access in our computer? Also, looking forward to the hardware based Firewall.

Antivirus:
You are right, the actual Windows Defender is doing a good job on a "no cost" base. I personally like the little bit more security with payed antivirus, but most payed antivirus musst be configured to work correctly. Microsoft ships each Windows system with the defender, and the defender would be better in most cases than any "free antivirus" out there.

RDP:
There are different bugs/exploits on windows system with RDP. This bugs/exploits are also for windows server versions (up to Windows Server 2019!!) in which someone could access your system without entering any password or username. If you do not need RDP (for example with port forwarding from your router to your PC) i always recommend to turn it of in order not to open a new attack vector. Server/PCs in the cloud are sometimes useing RDP to connect to, without the security of a VPN.

Hardware firewall:
As there is interest i will update the hardware firewall chapter. In short: you can get a nice new security feature for less than 200$ which is also able to block most advertisements on the internet (it did block youtube advertisements for me for a long time, currently it is not blocking anymore as i would have to change some settings on the blocker).

Feel free to ask anything, if i can help  i will

[Lucius]

Whenever you are going to ask another IT guy about his antivirus preferences he, most likely, will name different antivirus software. As far as your choosen antivirus software has all the features you need it will most likely be good.
For all antivirus i know there is not much to be done after installation and activation. You should sometimes check if it’s doing antivirus definition updates and also a complete antivirus scan (once per week) should be fine.

It's not just that about antivirus programs, every person has something they personally like or something they are paid to promote. From my personal experience (and I’ve tried most AV programs) I would recommend Norton Security as a security solution for home users. Of course, such software comes at a price - but one should never look at investing in security as an unnecessary expense. In the case of Norton, everything is automated, there is no need to run anything manually - weekly quick scan, computer maintenance in terms of performance and disk defragmentation. What I would still recommend is Malwarebytes Premium, certainly one of the best proactive protection programs that includes ransomware protection.

With regular OS updates and smart internet usage most users should be safe from those most common threats, especially considering that crypto users are one of the most vulnerable groups.

As for the antivirus and since I am using Windows, I think it is enough to just use Windows Defender instead of any other third party applications that can be found on the internet. It would just make your system far more insecure. Is it not?

Some even say that any use of AV is completely unnecessary, but it is a matter of their choice. I don't see how using respectable AVs can make the OS more insecure? On the other hand, there are many objections to the W10 as the nightmare of privacy - and yet the WD is something that should be enough to protect your device?

[HeRetiK]

As for the antivirus and since I am using Windows, I think it is enough to just use Windows Defender instead of any other third party applications that can be found on the internet. It would just make your system far more insecure. Is it not?

Some even say that any use of AV is completely unnecessary, but it is a matter of their choice. I don't see how using respectable AVs can make the OS more insecure? On the other hand, there are many objections to the W10 as the nightmare of privacy - and yet the WD is something that should be enough to protect your device?

The problem with third party AVs is that they can introduce additional attack vectors. They have deep access to your system and in some cases MITM your SSL connections. Accordingly any vulnerability in your AV of choice can be all the more harmful.

Obviously Windows 10 has its own problems. But by adding a third party AV you potentially add a liability on top of a liability.

Just my 2 sats though. YMMV.

[Lucius]

But by adding a third party AV you potentially add a liability on top of a liability.

It makes sense, although it sounds a bit strange that a security solution can pose a security issue. But in the end it's all a matter of individual choice, the risk can never be completely eliminated no matter which OS we use and whether we believe more in Windows Defender or some other AV. In the case of Avast, we’ve seen that free solutions come at a price, but it’s hard to believe that those paid solutions don’t spy on their users for making extra profit.

However, I think that it is far better to have something to protect us, than to completely trust that you will not pick up something malicious that will infect your computer. When I just remember how many users have reported over the years that they have lost their crypto due to clipboard malware, most would have avoided it if they had used any good AV/antimalware software.

[testbug]

I did add #7 for checking for leaked user information.
#6 will get updated soon as i think it is still interestening for some users "how easy" it is to setup a proper hardware firewall offering much more security than a standard based ISP providers router/GW.