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If your PC has become very slow you may have unwittingly allowed a Browser Hijack to take control of your internet connection. Browser Hijacking is a common type of on-line attack in which hackers attempt to take control of your internet browser to change how and what it displays when you’re using the internet.

the following are indicators of a Browser Hijack:

• The home page changes on your PC.
• Links are added to websites that you would usually avoid
• you cannot navigate to some websites, particularly microsoft update, or security software sites.
• Ad popups appear on your screen with annoying regularity
• Links or popups to gaming, pornography or other unsavoury sites appear.

Preventing Hijacks

Hijacks are relatively easy to defend against and providing you take reasonable precautions your PC should remain free from problems. We would advise the following approach.

• keep your PC up to date with the latest operating system patches
• Use a good anti-virus product, such as AVG
• Load Anti Spyware software, like Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware or Microsoft’s freely available Defender
• Don’t download or allow unknown ActiveX components to be loaded onto your PC.
• Look out for Social Engineering tactics.
• Don’t download or install any software that is not approved.

any website that asks you to install a program should be treated with appropriate levels of suspicion. If in doubt, use Google to pull up some background about the website or product. Also be aware that many popular programs such as screensavers, smileys, registry checkers and PC tuneup applications have been used as methods for Browser Hijacks

If you suspect your PC is infected you should seek professional advice. Unless you are very familiar with the workings of your PC’s operating system and with the methods used by Spyware and Malware programmers, it is unlikely that you will be able to solve the problem yourself.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Articles, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.