Internet Safety: Antivirus, Firewall, Password Managers.

• Firstly, you need a good antivirus and an anti-spyware. An antivirus is a computer program designed to protect you from Malware. An Anti-spyware is designed to block spyware. Typically, companies bundle Antivirus and Antispyware into a single program with both features. They are usually free only for private use.

It is very important to emphasize that they are reliable if and only if they are updated regularly so that they are able to detect and remove the latest security threats.

Some free-of-charge antivirus software are: ClamAv (an open source antivirus engine for detecting trojans, viruses, malware & other malicious threats), Free AVG Antivirus, Avast, and Ad-Aware Free.

• ClamAV is an open-source antivirus engine for detecting trojans, viruses, malware & other malicious threats. Let’s install and use it in Arch, GNU/Linux.

# First, we need to install the clamav package. 
sudo pacman -Sy clamav
# Update the virus definition 
sudo freshclam
# Get the latest definitions at boot so that the virus definitions are kept recent.
sudo systemctl enable --now clamav-freshclam.service
# Start the daemon
sudo systemctl enable --now clamav-daemon.service
# Test ClamAV. The output must contain: stdin: Win.Test.EICAR_HDB-1 FOUND
curl https://secure.eicar.org/eicar.com.txt | clamscan -
# Install more signatures (databases) from other repositories
yay -S clamav-unofficial-sigs
# Enable the clamav-unofficial-sigs.timer. It will regularly update the unofficial signatures.
sudo clamav-unofficial-sigs.sh--install-all
# Scan for viruses and remove them
clamscan --recursive--remove /home/yourUserName

• A firewall is a program that acts as a protective barrier, a gatekeeper or a security guard between you and the Internet. In other words, it prevents unauthorized Internet traffic from entering or leaving your computer, both by software programs and users.

The best free firewalls are: ZoneAlarm Free Firewall (one of the world’s most downloaded firewall software programs) and Comodo Firewall Free, a personal firewall software.

• Firewalld is a firewall that uses nftables by default. This brief tutorial shows you how to install and configure it in Arch, GNU/Linux.

# Install necessary packages
sudo pacman -s firewalld ipset ebtables
# Enable and start firewalld.service.
sudo systemctl enable--now firewalld.service
# Change the default zone to home.
sudo firewall-cmd--set-default-zone=home
# Open ftp and htpp services:--permanent because changes made in Runtime configuration are lost when the firewalld service is restarted.
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=ftp--permanent
sudo firewall-cmd --add-service=http--permanent
# Allow traffic on an incoming port (24800) -Barrier-
sudo firewall-cmd --add-port=24800/tcp--permanent
# Restart the firewall.
sudo firewall-cmd --reload
# List allowed service and ports on the system
sudo firewall-cmd --list-service

• Use password generators like Secure Password Generator, Norton’s Password Generator or LastPass.

• Use password strength checkers like How Secure Is My Password? to find out how strong your password is.

• To reduce this risk, you should use password managers such as LastPass, KeePass (the free, open source, light-weight and easy-to-use password manager) or Sticky Password. They are all used to store and manage your passwords. Virtual keyboards may be used in some cases to reduce the risk of keystroke logging (it is the act of recording key presses on a keyboard).

LastPass:

1. Create a strong master password.
2. Set up SMS Account Recovery and multifactor authentication. Open your LastPass Vault. Account Settings. 2.1 SMS Account Recovery. 2.2 Multifactor Options (LastPass Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, etc.).
3. Restrict LastPass Access to Specific Countries: Account Setting, Show Advanced Settings, Only allow login from selected countries.
4. Store Secure Notes (templates): Driver’s License, Wi-Fi passwords, credit card numbers, social security cards, passports, etc.
5. Form Fills. LastPass can remember and fill in name, birth date, gender, mailing address, email address, phone number, credit card information, social security number, etc.

• A backup is a duplicate or a copy on a different storage medium. It is also highly necessary but it is often neglected. Nowadays, on-line services, such as Dropbox, SkyDrive, pCloud, and Google Drive are the easiest ways to back up and sync files and directories among computers.

Other options you may consider are: A. Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program. It is a free alternative to Norton Ghost. B. Paragon Backup & Recovery is one of the best, free backup solutions. C. Déjà Dup Backup Tool is a very simple and yet powerful GUI tool for backup in Ubuntu. D. Timeshift is an open-source backup and restore application for Linux similar to the Time Machine tool in Mac OS. It protects your system by taking incremental snapshots of the file system at regular intervals.

This brief tutorial shows you how to install and configure it in Arch, GNU/Linux.

1. Installation.

     git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/timeshift.git
     cd timeshift
     makepkg -si
     cd ..
     rm -rf
   

2. Launch it: sudo timeshift-gtk.
3. Snapshot Type: RSYNC (Snapshots are incremental)/ BTRFS.
4. Select Snapshot Location where your snapshots will be saved, e.g., sda1.
5. Select Snapshot Levels. It sets an automatic backup schedule, e.g., daily and 2 as the numbers of snapshots to be saved.
6. User Home Directories. User data is excluded by default, but you can change this: Include All.

• Protect your router. It is your first line of defense. A. Ask yourself if you need Wifi or not. If the answer is no, just turn if off in the router’s configuration settings. B. Change the default administrator password. C. Turn on WPA2-PSK (AES) encryption.

D. Change the default SSID ― your network name ―. E. If you want to go one step further, enable MAC address filtering, so only the devices with MAC addresses listed in the router will be allowed to connect.

To find out your MAC address type ipconfig /all at the command prompt in Windows or ifconfig in GNU/Linux.