Protect your USB data
If like most of the population you use a USB memory stick or USB hard drive to store data on – is it protected?
If you USB stick fell into the wrong hands, you left it on the bus seat, it fell out of your bag somewhere – what did it have it on it?
Is there anything on there that is important?
It’s ok i deleted all the important stuff last week !!
Well anyone in the data recovery industry will tell you that means not much at this stage – it’s what we do !!
However, encrypting your drive is a whole different ball game !
To help everyone to protect themselves Sophos is providing free tools:
http://www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/
Or contact us at LCRM to discuss your needs or worries – we are here to help and love a challenge !
Any questions — fire at will :)
Anti-virus comparison
Hello all,
After a recent data recovery job, some interesting results came to light. Our forensic workstation, a dedicated high powered Windows XP box, runs a specialist piece of software to quickly process forensic examination and data recovery.
During data recovery from a client’s machine, it aspired that numerous pieces of malware were uncovered. Threats identified included Key-Gen droppers. Generic malware and webstart-a (a java based piece of code to execute other malicious files).
Of the three security packages installed on our workstation, Sophos, Microsoft Security Essentials and ClamAV, we found that Sophos was the first in and detected the most threats, then ClamAV and as yet Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is still to report any threats.
Whether the lack of response on the MSE front is due to the fact that Sophos quarantined the items first, arguably then how did ClamAV see it, or whether MSE only scans items when they are read and not written to disk. Over time this will be answered. However, for now we move our free recommended anti-virus solution to ClamAV.
As always our recommended anti-virus security solution in the workplace is Sophos and due to these recent events our home user recommendation will, for the meantime, included ClamAV.
ClamAV website and download is available fro the link below:
http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/
We understand the costs of anti-virus as an ongoing subscription, that is why we try to help out our clients save the pennies wherever possible – yet still aiming to provide the best solutions possible.
As always LCRM, providing support when IT counts !!
Forensic Readiness Plan
The first thing we do in a fire is go to the allocated meeting point..
What do you do in the event of a digital emergency – follow the Forensic Readiness Plan.
Whats an FRP and does the company have one? Probably not, but they are becoming increasingly popular and more and more of a necessity with companies employing staff.
An FRP can be as simple as ensuring all user activities are logged, including network access requests, file access times and login/access attempts to highly detailed monitoring and forward thinking procedures – you might contract a company as your on standby first responder.
Realistically, and with the home user in mind, lets take a common scenario into account. You have cleverly and successfully managed to wipe you C:\ drive or eradicate you My Documents folder with 2000 of your most precious photos in. What do you do ??
Simple – pull the plug !
Literally pull the plug, do not shutdown, do not pass go, cut the power to that machine ASAP.
The reason is – the more activity that takes place on that disk – the less and less and less chance you, I or any other practitioner has of recovering your data.
Thats it for now, the most basic basics in an event of loss of data.
