Windows Defender
Is your Vista computer well secured ?

Windows Defender
malicious software (also called malware) is software developped to do damage to other computers or to damage the privacy of people.
These tools don't have a icon like other tools have but they are hided in your computer and will be started automatically without knowing it.

There are many different kinds of malware. For example there are virusses, worms, spyware, and adware.
Here we want to inform you how you can protect your computer against them and how you can remove them if your computer is infected.

Virusses and worms
Virusses and worms are tools which will be multiplied from one computer to another. This mostly happens over the internet. A virus needs a host file to multiply itself. This hostfile is often hidden in a attachment in an e-mail or in a program that is downloaded.

Worms you can compare with virusses. Also worms can multiply themselves. The difference between worms and virusses is that worms don't need a host file to multiply themselves but can infect your computer directly via the internet connection. That's the reason why you should always enable your Windows Vista Firewall.

Spyware and Adware
Spyware and Adware are not meant to damage your computer but for advertising.
Via Adware there will be advertisements displayed on your screen without asking for it. Spyware and Adware are often working together. Via adware the advertisements are being displayed on your screen while spyware makes the advertisements interesting for you because they collect data to find out what your interests are.

Trojan Horses and rootkits
A Trojan Horse is a tool that in the first instance a useful tool but in it there is malicious software embedded.
A rootkit is a tool which is meant to hide itself and the malicious purposes of another tool. Because of this, this software cannot be found by the user and sometimes even not by the computer.
Windows Vista protects you against on all kinds of ways against rootkits, for example via Windows Defender.

How to make Spyware harmless?
Spyware and Adware aren't meant to damage your computer in the first place, but it will can damage your computer. For example your computer can become very slow, the internet settings can be changed, there can be displayed all kinds of advertisements (also pornographic, or violent advertisements) and there can be spread your personal data.

Spyware is often hided in software which is free to download, for example in screensavers, tools for sharing files, etc.
Spyware can also be installed on your computer automatically by a script which is hided in websites.

Windows Defender is in the fist instance meant to protect you against spyware, but also prevents that your computer will be infected by all sorts of adware, trojan horses and rootkits.

To check if Windows Defender is running on your computer, you open the Security Center. You open the Security Center by clicking:

• Start
• Control Panel
• Security Center

If 'Malware protection' is green and it says 'On' then you are well protected against malicious software. Click on 'Malware protection' to see the settings. If Windows Defender is running, this will be notified in the 'Spyware and other malware protection' section. As you can see in the image below.

Remove spyware from your computer
If the Security Center says that Windows Defender is running, then you are well protected against malicious software. The you don't need to open the Windows Defender window. But you can also change some settings or manually scan your computer.

Using this tool you can do a scan to check if there is spyware on your computer. You can do a quick scan or a full scan.
By choosing a quick scan only the places will be scanned where spyware is often located.
Furthermore you can do also a custom scan where you can choose which hard drives you like to scan.

If you want to scan your computer you do the following:

• Click on 'Windows Defender' in the left pane.
• In the windows that appears you click on the arrow button near 'Scan'.
• Then you can choose which type of scan you want.

A full scan can take a few minutes. Suspicious items which were found on your computer are being placed in quarantaine (disabled). After the scan is complete, you get an overview of all the quarantained items.

Here you can see all the quarantained items which were found by the scan.
At the 'Alert level' you can see how dangerous the specific item is. Let me explain the alert levels:

If you want to remove an item, click on the name of it and click 'Remove'. Most of the time you can use the button 'Remove all' because useful software isn't listed in this list. But review the items because there is a possibility that there is a useful tool in this list for some reason.
So if there is a tool listed in this list and you are sure that it isn't malicious software you select it and click the 'Restore' button.

Full scans
A full scan takes a while because every file on your hard drive will be checked. If you do a quick scan, only the new files and folders which are often used for spyware will be scanned. So if you have done a full scan once, you can do quick scans in the future.

Custom scans
Do a custom scan to check a particular drive or a particular folder. If you received for example a cd or a dvd you can scan them first to be sure they are 'clean'.
Near scanning cds or dvds it is also recommended to scan every file and tool you download from the internet.

In this window you enable 'Automatically scan my computer (recommended). Then you choose the frequency you wish. If you set a time and at that time your computer is powered off, the scan starts automatically as soon as the computer is powered on again. In this windows you can also select the scan type.

Configure startup settings
In Software Explorer in Windows Defender you can get an overview of programs which are active on your computer. Here you can configure which programs are allowed to start automatically when your computer boots.

You can open Software Explorer by clicking 'Tools' in the Windows Defender window and then by clicking Software Explorer. Now the window below appears. Here you can see a list of programs which are being started when your computer boots.
In the right pane you see more information about the program you select from the list on the left.

Microsoft SpyNet
SpyNet exists of a large group users of Windows Defender who warn each other for spyware. If you participate in SpyNet you can see how other users classify suspicious software which isn't classified by experts.
If Windows Defender finds a suspicious file then there will be showed in a graph how many SpyNet members allowed that particular item.

If you like to join Microsoft SpyNet you start Windows Defender and you click Microsoft SpyNet in the 'Tools' window. In this 'Tool' window you click 'Microsoft SpyNet'. Read here the instructions and make your choice.

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