{"id":307,"date":"2012-12-20T10:54:05","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2012-12-20T10:54:05","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:54:05","slug":"the-malicious-safety-onecare-essential-defender-straightening-out-microsofts-confusing-security-tools-pcworld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2012\/12\/20\/the-malicious-safety-onecare-essential-defender-straightening-out-microsofts-confusing-security-tools-pcworld\/","title":{"rendered":"The Malicious Safety OneCare Essential Defender: Straightening out Microsoft&#039;s confusing security tools &#124; PCWorld"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2013178\/the-malicious-safety-onecare-essential-defender-straightening-out-microsofts-confusing-security-too.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/nccomputertech.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/12\/111220thum-100010442-medium.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When it comes to security, the folks in Redmond can go overboard with new products&#8211;or worse, new names for old products. What follows is a complete list of Microsoft programs, past and present, intended to help keep malware off your computer.<br \/>\nAt least, I think it&#8217;s complete. If I missed anything, that&#8217;s what the comment section is for.<br \/>\nMicrosoft AntiSpyware: No longer available. You can think of this as an antivirus program that looked for spyware rather than viruses. Since modern antivirus programs also look for spyware, it was kind of redundant. It eventually became Windows Defender (see below).<br \/>\nMicrosoft OneCare Live: No longer available. This utility and security suite included antivirus, backup, and other tools.<br \/>\nWindows Live OneCare Scanner: No longer available. This on-demand malware scanner was intended to supplement your regular anti-virus program by offering a second opinion when you felt you needed one.<br \/>\nMicrosoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool: Another on-demand malware scanner, still available, but of limited usefulness. It&#8217;s designed to remove a few specific, particularly stubborn threats. It&#8217;s only updated once a month.<br \/>\nMicrosoft Safety Scanner: Yet another on-demand scanner, although this time with a more comprehensive malware database. Safety Scanner is updated every ten days, which is better than monthly but still not frequently enough.<br \/>\nMicrosoft Standalone System Sweeper: No longer available. Would you believe\u2026another on-demand scanner? But this time, it&#8217;s bootable, from either a CD or a flash drive. Bootable scanners are, arguably, the most effective kind.<br \/>\nMalware Prevention Diagnostic Tool: An entirely different kind of scanner. Instead of looking for malware, it checks how you&#8217;ve configured Windows and offers to fix settings that can be exploited by the bad guys.<br \/>\nWindows Defender: The renamed Microsoft AntiSpyware. It comes with Vista and Windows 7, but is usually turned off.<br \/>\nWindows Defender Offline: Another bootable scanner. Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper&#8217;s replacement.<br \/>\nMicrosoft Security Essentials: Microsoft&#8217;s free antivirus program. As these programs go, Essentials is one of the easiest to use. But it&#8217;s not the best at catching malware.<br \/>\nWindows Defender&#8211;the Windows 8 version: Like the two Windows before it, version 8 comes with Windows Defender. But this time, it uses the same antimalware engine as Security Essentials. In other words, it&#8217;s a real antivirus program, but probably not one of the most effective.<br \/>\nvia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/2013178\/the-malicious-safety-onecare-essential-defender-straightening-out-microsofts-confusing-security-too.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Malicious Safety OneCare Essential Defender: Straightening out Microsoft&#8217;s confusing security tools | PCWorld<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to security, the folks in Redmond can go overboard with new products&#8211;or worse, new names for old [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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tackles the tricky false positives problem plaguing antivirus software","author":"NCCT","date":"February 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"VirusTotal, a Google-owned online malware scanning service, is creating a whitelist of products from large software vendors to reduce bad detections by antivirus programs. False positive detections are common in the antivirus industry. They occur when a benign program is wrongfully flagged as malicious due to an overly broad detection\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Security&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Security","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/security\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3156,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2013\/08\/09\/hand-of-thief-banking-trojan-doesnt-do-windows-but-it-does-linux\/","url_meta":{"origin":307,"position":1},"title":"\u201cHand of Thief\u201d banking trojan doesn\u2019t do Windows\u2014but it does Linux","author":"NCCT","date":"August 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Signaling criminals' growing interest in attacking non-Windows computers, researchers have discovered banking fraud malware that targets people using the open-source Linux operating system. Hand of Thief, which was recently discovered by researchers from security firm RSA, sells for about $2,000 in underground Internet forums and boasts its own support and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linux&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linux","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/linux\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/hand-of-thief-640x294.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/hand-of-thief-640x294.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/hand-of-thief-640x294.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5916,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/07\/08\/attack-on-dailymotion-redirected-visitors-to-exploits\/","url_meta":{"origin":307,"position":2},"title":"Attack on Dailymotion redirected visitors to exploits","author":"NCCT","date":"July 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Attackers injected malicious code into Dailymotion.com, a popular video sharing website, and redirected visitors to Web-based exploits that installed malware. The rogue code consisted of an iframe that appeared on Dailymotion on June 28, researchers from security vendor Symantec said Thursday in a blog post. The iframe redirected browsers to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Security&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Security","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/security\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5750,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/06\/11\/one-click-test-finds-gameover-zeus-infections-on-pcs\/","url_meta":{"origin":307,"position":3},"title":"One-click test finds Gameover Zeus infections on PCs","author":"NCCT","date":"June 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Users can test by simply visiting a Web page if their computers have been infected with Gameover Zeus, a sophisticated online banking Trojan that law enforcement officers temporarily disrupted last week. The one-click test was developed by security researchers from antivirus vendor F-Secure and takes advantage of the malware\u2019s aggressive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Security&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Security","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/security\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5710,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/06\/10\/microsoft-pushes-out-massive-security-update-for-internet-explorer\/","url_meta":{"origin":307,"position":4},"title":"Microsoft pushes out massive security update for Internet Explorer","author":"NCCT","date":"June 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Microsoft pushes out massive security update for Internet Explorer Six down, six to go. Today is the Microsoft Patch Tuesday for June, and it comes with seven new security bulletins. The good news is that five of the seven are only rated as Important, but one of the two Critical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9170,"url":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2017\/05\/19\/is-microsoft-to-blame-for-wannacry\/","url_meta":{"origin":307,"position":5},"title":"Is Microsoft to Blame for WannaCry?","author":"NCCT","date":"May 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qsj4cX2aYxg Denise Howell and Matt Curtis talk with Andrew Rossow, cyberspace and technology lawyer about whose fault is WannaCry and what can be done about it?","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Microsoft&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Microsoft","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/category\/microsoft\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/qsj4cX2aYxg\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}