How does a firewall work???

The other important aspect of computer security is a firewall. Those who use the computers would have heard the term firewall. Firewall acts as a barrier which keeps checking the incoming as well as the outgoing packets. These packets are usually checked for security breach. That is why it has got the name as firewall. The job of this firewall is similar to that of the physical firewall which we know. The job of the physical firewall is to stop the fire from spreading across from one side to the other. Similarly this firewall protects the unwanted elements from entering the system and spreading across the system thus causing damage to the system.

How to protect your system??/

Lets now look at the working of an Antivirus.

Viruses have been a threat to the computers from eighties. It was initially discovered as a malicious code and then went on to be named as virus.

There are 2 available options to prevent a computer from entering a computer.

The first option available is to isolate your computer. This means that you should disconnect your computer from the Internet or any other computer from which viruses may enter your system. You should not use external devices such as Floppy or CD. This will keep your system as fine as possible. There will be no virus-threat to your computers. But your computer will just remain as a microwave oven, i.e. a storage device without any data processing.

The second option is the more safer one to use. This option is to install an antivirus program. This program gives you an illusion that there are no viruses in your system.

How does a computer virus work???

Lets have a look at the working of the computer virus first. The first and foremost thing that people are troubled by while using the internet is a virus. Often we use an antivirus to remove the virus. In order to remove a virus from our system we must find out how a virus works?? Lets find out how a virus in a computer works.

Viruses may be of several types like E-mail viruses, Trojan horses, malwares etc. The virus is a software code which is installed along with the product through which the virus is spread. Once ypu start using the product, i.e you end up double clicking that product the virus becomes active. It gets downloaded to our system. It starts replicating itself thus creating many copies. These copies then spread to various parts of the infected system. Whenever we use an external device such as the pen drive, CD or a floppy drive, the viruses get transferred to those external devices. These viruses then get copied on to the system which uses the infected external device. Sometimes viruses may even enter our system through e-mails. These are called e-mail viruses.

How to lock your computers using USB

If you want to protect your computer against others, then wouldn't it be cool if you could lock your computer by just removing your USB stick from it??

Boot Lock

This trick will allow you to use your USB stick as a key to boot into windows. Anybody who tries to start the computer without the USB stick will be displayed with boot errors. Performing this will be at your own risk..

Things that you need.
A 64 MB or larger sized USB disk and a windows recovery disk(just in case you require it)

Just follow the steps given below.

Step 1:

Unhide hidden and protected files. If you are unaware on how to do that
Goto Tools->Options->View, check show hidden files and uncheck hide protected system files.

Step 2:

From the drive where windows is installed, copy the files boot.ini.ntdlr and NTDETECT.COM to your USB stick.

Step 3:

Now we need to go to your BIOS. So restart your computer and keep jabbing F8 as soon as the computer starts.

Step 4:

Once in the BIOS, enable USB Drive as the first boot device. You might have to enable USB Legacy Support on older BIOSes.

Step 5:

Restart your computer, if all goes well you should be able to log into Windows. If not then unplug the USB disk and return to the BIOS and change the first boot device to your hard drive and repeat the steps above.

Step 6:

Once you are into Windows, goto your Windows drive and rename boot.ini to boot.bak.

Step 7:

To check if you have setup everything correctly, eject your USB disk and reboot your computer. You should get error messages on the screen such as "Invalid Boot.ini" or "Windows could not start".

Step 8:

In case your Windows does not start use your Windows recovery disk to start your windows.

My Disclosure Policy!!

In this column I am much obligated to write my own disclosure policy. In this post I disclose and inform my readers that I will provide quality information to all my readers and thank them for visiting my blog. Sometimes for the development of my blog I may accept some posts that are paid by good advertisers and I swear to fulfill their requirements. Thank you one and all...

About this blog....

This blog will provide its readers with the latest information and happenings in this world. You will also come across some interesting stuffs such as how stuff works, etc from this blog. So all in all an informative blog which will keep you updated about almost everything.