Who to Trust - Part 1: The basics of home protection - anti-malware and firewall protection

The world of Internet and device security is increasing in importance for most people, whether they are aware of this or not. We are trusting our devices to assist us more in our daily lives, we are spending more time on the Internet, and our governments and major corporations (like our banks), are placing more of their services online. In some instances the options for transacting business face-to-face is being shutdown, with corporations and governments considering that the traditional service models are too slow and too expensive to maintain.

As might be expected, this means that there is an increased opportunity for criminal activities to occur online. Certainly we have seen this with the number of incidents that continue to accumulate where people's credit records and identities have been exposed and abused. Major corporations have suffered real financial loses in the market due to the hacking activities of criminal elements. And in an increasing trend, governments and militaries the world over are establishing hacking and counter-hacking capabilities, not only for information and intelligence gathering, but also as offensive and defensive capabilities to disrupt the infrastructure and communications capabilities of their enemies.

But lets keep in mind that these instances are the big-ticket news items in the world of information security. And they are often sensationalised to the point of making the everyday Internet user feel like they are being targeted. Because it sells news articles and advertising, and people can write advertorials for specific anti-malware products, that if you download, you may or may not be getting a worthwhile and effective product. You might even be getting a program that in itself is a piece of malware.

This five-part series will aim to inform and provoke you to think about your safety on the Internet, with the goal of helping you to feel more confident, and to make better decisions about what and who to trust on the Internet

Who should you trust?: A fresh perspective

Be wary of trusting anyone who is predicting doom and gloom - even more so if they are telling you that they have the solution. Such people are like a car insurance salesman who shows up at the car yard when you buy a car, and tells you that the number one reason you shouldn't get on the road is because 100% of cars could have an accident leaving the car yard, but his insurance will protect you.

In any transaction or communication across the Internet that you participate in, the one part of the transaction that will always be the same, is you. The first aspect of working out who and what to trust, is being able to trust yourself, or at least know yourself. In this context, where I have and will use the word 'you/yourself', I also mean 'you and your computer'. In keeping with that, this first article looks at the general threats a home Internet user may face, and what options you have for protecting yourself, beyond switching the computer off and never using it again.

Firstly, lets outline some of the common forms of threats on the Internet that commonly affect the home user. Knowing these terms will help you to understand some of the more complex parts of this series, but more importantly will help you to make better decisions about your computer security.

Malware: Malware is the catch-all term used to refer to any kind of computer code that performs a hostile or intrusive action on your computer. This includes viruses, scareware, ransomware, spyware, adware and many other potential problems. 'Malware is a concatenation of the words malicious software. [If you don't want to get to technical - just remember this one term, and skip past the rest.]
(Computer) Virus: A program or application that is loaded onto your device without your knowledge, that runs against your wishes. Often viruses can replicate and distribute themselves.
Phishing: the practice of sending fraudulent emails, or establishing fraudulent web sites, with the pretense of belonging to or coming from a reputable company, usually to deceive a user into giving up important details
Spam: unwanted or unsolicited email, usually advertising, that may contain other forms of malware
Worm: a specific form of computer virus that is capable of distributing itself across a network to infect multiple machines
Trojan Horse (or Trojan): a program that appears harmless, or to have some utility for the user, but is in fact malicious.
Spyware: computer code that allows someone to obtain information about you or your computer by covertly sending the information from your computer.
Scareware: computer program that is designed to trick or encourage a user into buying and or downloading a potentially dangerous software package, such as a fake anti-virus program.
Ransomware: a type of malicious software that is designed to block access to your computer until a sum of money is paid.
Adware: software that is designed purely to display advertisements, and is integrated into another program that is offered at no charge, or low cost. There is a distinction to be made here though. Particularly with mobile phone and tablet applications there is advertising in free app versions. But the user is made aware of this at the time of downloading the application. Whilst technically such ads are adware, if Google and Apple take some steps to ensure such ads are not malicious and that they do not interrupt the function of the application (that's not to say the ads will not annoy you), it is accepted that they are part of what you get if you download the free version of an application, rather than paying a small fee for the ad-free version. For these reasons, I am not including these as adware, and in this series of articles references to adware will mean applications that install advertising software that the user has not agreed to.
Hacker: Someone who attempts to change the way a system operates, usually to solve a problem, or to investigate and learn, usually without malicious intent.
Cracker: a concatenation of criminal hacker. Someone who attempts to break, change or intrusively conduct malicious actions on a computer system without authorisation, and usually for the purpose of personal gain.

We will refer back to the terms listed above throughout this series of articles. For now though, the most important details to give you is not the what or how of why you need protection, but the where to get it. There are a large number of anti-malware products on the market, and a large number of them will offer free trials. But which are the best for the home user? And how do you know that you can trust them?

Get your software direct from the source

Over the years many criminal operations have sought to conduct their operations by offering cheap anti-virus and computer security solutions that are actually malware, but they deceived users by copying the official branding of the real product. It's little bit like buying a Rolex watch. If you buy it in a flee-market, the product, the box and the warranty card may all look genuine - and might just be the real thing. But the average user has no real way to discern the difference between the genuine product and the fake until it is too late.

The same goes for anti-malware applications. There are some sites on the Internet that offer free downloads of many types of applications - just search for the type or name of the application you want, follow the links, and now you have it. Whilst the sites themselves may not be doing anything malicious, they may not be checking that the products on offer are the real product. One of the anti-malware applications I recommend below was a common target of such operations about five to ten years ago. Users who downloaded the trial product from free download sites often reported security and malware problems that they could not get rid of. Users who either bought the product off-the-shelf in-store, or who downloaded the product from the companies own website however had no adverse issues and often gave good reviews of the product.

So the lesson here is, get your software direct from the source - skip the middleman. Common sense tells us that if the product is free, yet it is being supplied by the middleman, we might want to think about how he is making money?

The main contenders

(Please note, I have tried to avoid comparing these products on the basis of cost because of the different prices found in stores versus online, and because the online prices are subject to changing special offers):

Bullguard (www.bullguard.com) is one of my favourites. A UK based company that offers Internet security and anti-malware solutions for your PC and mobile device. On the PC version, they will allow you a 60-day free trial, after which if you wish to keep the application up-to-date you will need to pay. Performs well, and I've never heard of it causing performance issues. Key selling points are that the PC version will integrate with your browser and the most common email clients to filter spam and capture worms and trojans before they infect your system. Through your browser it will also indicate links in your search-engine results that are safe, and block attempts to navigate to sitres that have been reported as attack-sites. The mobile version allows you to register your device, so that if you lose it, you can track it, lock it down or if necessary wipe the data off it.

They offer a range of products, from just their anti-virus protection, identity protection, Internet security solution (includes anti-virus and firewall), up to their Premium Protection product (anti-virus, firewall, and identity protection). Only their Internet Security and Premium Protection offering include free online backup storage capacity. The base license allows for installation across three PC's using the same Bullguard account, and if you have extra devices you can pay to increase the number of devices protected. Worth noting that the Premium version boasts features for monitoring your children's social media profiles.

Norton Security (www.norton.com) has been one of the mainstays of the IT industry. Highly reputable, and usable across PC, Mac and mobile devices. They used to have a number of different product versions, which they have rolled into the one product called Norton Security, which offers anti-malware, identity protection and firewall features. The licensing offers cover one device (Standard), three devices (Deluxe) or five devices (Premium), with the cost per device decreasing for the bigger license. The free online backup space for the Standard offering is only a paltry 2GB, but the backup space for the Deluxe and Premium accounts is a decent 25GB.

McAfee (www.mcafee.com) is another long-term player in the market. They are now part of the Intel Security group. They offer protection across a range of user groups, from the home user up to large enterprises. They're offerings start with McAfee Anti-virus Plus. Next is the McAfee Internet Security package which adds parental controls, spam-filtering and a password store. The top line product in the McAfee Total Protection, which only adds file encryption.

Unfortuantely there are other product and plan offerings from MCAfee such as McAfee LiveSafe, and McAfee Small Business Security, however they do not freely offer the details of how these products are structured, making it somewhat difficult to provide an open comparison for them.

Kaspersky Lab (www.kaspersky.com) came to the fore about a decade ago, and I'll admit that originally I steered clear of it since it came form Russia, and was initially rumoured to be a product of the Russian mafia. However Kaspersky has put these rumours to bed with a solid performance in the industry over the last decade. Like McAfee they have a range of solutions for home, small business and larger concerns. In the home user space they offer Kaspersky Anit-Virus, and Kaspersky Internet Security which comes in a Multi-Device and Total Security Multi-Device editions. Beyond the anti-malware protection of their Anti-Virus solution, their Internet Security editions offer identity protection, online security for banking and credit card transactions, and parental controls. The Total Security edition has the further addition of Kaspersky Password Manager and file encryptions, backup and file shredding for PC.

Judging Kaspersky against their competitors on a value basis is a bit difficult. Where most other companies offer their licenses on a yearly basis, Kaspersky offer their Anti-Virus, Internet Security and Total Security products on 2-year licenses for one device, whilst their Internet Security Multi-Device product is a 3-device 1-year license. Kaspersky is definitely worth considering, and is one of the more recent products that I have used. The only downside to my experience was that I was using it on a laptop that would go to sleep regularly, and every time I woke the laptop up to start working, the Kaspersky Password Manager wanted me to re-enter my credentials, and from this the laptop would have a 30 to 40-second delay for any applications that you wanted to start up. Not good for a device that you want to open up and start working with immediately.

Trend Micro (www.trendmicro.com.au) has been a long-term player, and really has come to the fore in recent years. For the home user they have a number of offerings. Premium Security 10 provides protection for up to 6 devices across PC, Mac, Android and iOS platforms. Maximum Security 10 provides protection for up to 4 devices across the same range of platforms. Internet Security 10 offers protection for a single PC, as does their Antivirus + Security product. Of particular interest is that they also have a Mac specific product - Antivirus for Mac.

Across their product range Trend Micro boast that their products block new threats faster than their competitors through cloud-based updates. Their Antivirus + Security product offers anti-malware protection including identity protection in social media sites and from phishing emails. Trend Micro's Internet Security product offers the addition of a password manager and parental controls. Their Maximum Security product only provides additional features for mobile devices, and I was rather dismayed to see that only their Premium Security product offers 24/7 help desk support - something that seems to be reasonably standard across the product sets of their competitors. If you compare the value per device between the Maximum Security and Premium Security offerings, it would appear that Trend charge approximately $20 for that help desk support.

AVG (www.avg.com) offer a free trial on your PC and a free trail for their mobile app as well. Their product suite includes a PC TuneUp application, as well AVG Cleaner for Mac which appears to be similar. Focusing on their anti-malware and security offerings they have AVG AntiVirus, AVG Internet Security and AVG AntiVirus for Mac.

AVG offers a cloud-based outbreak detection feature that seems to be similar to the fast updates that Trend Micro offer. Their AntiVirus blocks malware, prevents spying and data theft, and can encrypt files. Unfortunately the level of detail on their product page was not specific about the features used to prevent spying and data theft. AVG Internet Security provides firewall and secure online shopping protections, and what AVG terms as 'Advanced Privacy Protection'. The selling point for AVG AntiVirus for Mac is that their solution will also detect and remove viruses that affect PC and mobile devices, therefore preventing your Mac from becoming a carrier.

Bitdefender (www.bitdefender.com) has been one of the unsung success stories for sometime. Originally Bullguard anti-virus solutions used the Bitdefender engine. Bitdefender also offer a number of speciality offerings, including a Linux-based CD-live operating system that allows for the cleaning and removal of viruses from heavily infected systems. Where I know from experience that their product is good, their marketing could be better - information such as product comparison should be closer to the top of the product page, rather than shoved down the bottom.

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus provides anti-malware protection including the new Anti-Ransomware Defense, which I have not seen advertised by others. Also online payment protection, identity protection and a password manager. Their INternet Security product provides additional firewall, parental controls and anti-spam features for your emails. Their Total Security solution steps up to include device anti-theft features and file encryption. All the Bitdefender products come on a 3 PC per year license.

So there you have my top seven recommendations of which companies to trust when looking at your anti-virus and Internet security solutions. From my perspective, the four featrures that every home user should have in their Internet security suite is spam-filtering, anti-virus protection and a firewall, backed by 24/7 technical support. Many of the products listed above also offer PC tune-up tools as part of their suites, but they are a nice to have optional feature. All the companies are reputable, and should be in the market place for some time to come. When choosing your next security solution for your home or small business devices, I highly recommend that you take a look at what these companies are offering at the time. The product sets have changed and will continue to be upgraded on a regular basis, and the special deals that they offer online with some of their suites do change frequently. If you do your homework, and shop wisely, you should get a solution that fits your needs for around $30 per device, definitely no more than $40 per device if you are securing multiple devices. If you want security for just one PC, you shouldn't be paying more than $60 based upon current prices.